LIBRARY 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

SANTA  BARBARA 

GIFT  OF 
MRS.  BRUCE  C.  HOPPER 


Crucifixion  as  it  really  existed  and  as  descril>ed  by  the  Fathers  of  the  Church, 
and  not  as  exaggerated  and  falsified  by  the  mere  fancy  of  Artists  and  Poets  of 
modern  times. 


A    RATIONAL  VIEW 


OF 


JESUS  AND  RELIGION. 


EMBRACING    AN     EXAMINATION     OF    THE    ORIGIN    AND    RATIONALE    OF 

RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS  AND  OF  THE  CLAIMS  OF  SUPERNATURALISM  AND 

REVF.ALED  RELIGIONS ;   AND  A  SOLUTION   OF  THE   MYSTERIES 

ENSHROUDING  THE  CHRISTIAN  FAITH,  AND  THE  BIRTH, 

LIFE,      CHARACTER,     AND      SUPPOSED      MIRACLES 

AND     RESURRECTION     OF     ITS     FOUNDER. 


BY 

E.    W.   McCOMAS. 


NEW  YORK: 

JOHN    WURTELE    LOVELL, 

No*  24  BOND  STREET. 
1880. 


Entered  according  to  act  of  Congress  in  the  year  1879,  by 

E.  W.  McCOMAS, 
in  the  office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


PREFACE. 


IN  the  following  pages  I  have  attempted  to  give  an 
exposition  of  the  views  at  which  I  have  arrived,  (after 
many  experiences  and  much  thought,)  upon  the  origin 
and  significance  of  men's  religious -beliefs,  and  especial- 
ly with  regard  to  the  mysteries  surrounding  the  origin, 
faith  and  founder  of  that  phase  of  religious  development 
known  as  Christianity. 

The  work  has  no  pretentions  to  erudition  or  literary 
merit.  If  it  has  merit  of  any  kind,  it  consists  in  its 
direct,  rational  and  candid  methods  and  its  unbiased  and 
truthful  conclusions — in  its  giving  the  essential  truth 
and  true  reasons  in  a  frank  and  fearless  manner.  This 
seemed  to  the  author  to  be  what  was  most  needed  :  and 
this  he  has  endeavored  to  supply.  The  object  has  been, 
not  to  give  the  reader  religious  information,  since  that 
is  abundantly  supplied,  but  to  aid  him  to  an  insight  into 
the  "  true  inwardness  "  of  facts  already  accessible.  The 
author  does  not  flatter  himself  that  success,  even  in  his 
aims,  will  render  the  work  popular  or  interesting,  inas- 
much as  the  real,  unvarnished  truth  on  subjects  upon 
which  men's  bias,  partisanship  and  prejudice  are  so  ex- 


6  PREFACE. 

treme  as  in  matters  of  religion,  is  rarely  palatable  or 
charitably  judged.  Men  are  rarely  so  interested  in  right 
thinking  as  in  agreeable  thinking,  or  in  correcting  their 
opinions  as  in  defending  them,  or  in  the  prolonged  state- 
ments and  reasonings  necessary  to  insure  correct  con- 
clusions as  in  new  facts  and  fine  writing.  For  these 
difficulties,  however,  the  author  has  no  remedy  consistent 
with  his  success  in  reaching  his  true  object.  The  very 
purpose  is  to  oppose  prepossessions  and  to  supply  that 
candid  and  unbiased  thinking  which,  if  it  were  agreeable 
and  popular,  would  long  since  have  been  •  supplied  ;  and, 
had  the  author  the  power  to  add  attractive  adornments 
to  his  plain  expositions  and  reasonings,  they  would  only 
divide  the  attention  of  the  reader  and  gain  credit  for 
the  author  at  the  expense  of  his  purpose :  results  that 
are  by  no  means  desirable.  The  object  has  been,  not  to 
write  a  fine  book  or  to  persuade  people  into  particular 
religious  notions,  but  to  furnish  correct  thought  and 
true  conceptions  and  reasons  for  those  who  are  desirous 
of  such  aid.  The  spancels,  indeed,  which  an  anxious 
and  extreme  desire  to  avoid  all  possible  error  and  even 
doubtful  truths  place  upon  the  mind,  are  antagonistic  to 
fine  writing.  To  row  against  the  current  requires  force, 
and  not  fancy.  Most  persons  are  concerned,  not  to 
ascertain  the  truth  in  relation  to  religion,  but  to 
successfully  maintain  the  religion  they  inherit  or  pre- 
fer ;  and  they  feel  and  act  as  if  their  faith  or  belief 
as  to  the  facts  could  affect  the  facts  themselves.  To 
those  who  really  prefer  to  thus  blind  themselves  to  the 
real  facts  of  nature,  I  must  frankly  say — "  Let  the  book 
alone  :  it  will  not  aid  you  in  such  a  purpose  : — it  is  not 
safe  for  you."  Those,  however,  who  are  desirous  or 


PREFACE.  7 

willing  to  know  the  real  truth  for  the  sake  of  being 
right,  will  hardly  fail  to  find  substantial  aid  in  attaining 
their  desires  if  they  can  command  the  patience  to  indulge 
in  a  careful  and  appreciative  examination  of  the  views 
and  reasoning  advanced, — a  patience  especially  demanded 
by  the  condensed  statements  of  the  first  chapter.  With 
this  hope,  I  remain  their  obedient  servant, 

THE  AUTHOR. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAP.  PAGB. 

I.  Origin  and  Development  of  Religious  Beliefs 9 

Part  2.     Relations  between  God  and  Man. .  44 

Part  3.     Saviour-idea — Revelations,  &c 63 

Part  4.     Miracles,  Hells,  &c 88 

II.  The  Tap-root  or  Basic  Fact  of  Christianity 119 

III.  The  Obstructions  to  a  fair  Discussion  of  the  Main 

Issue 130 

IV.  The  Promulgators  of  the  Evidence 141 

V.  The  Written  Gospels,  their  Authors  and  their  Value. .  176 

VI.  An  Epoch  of  Myths  and  Miracles 202 

VII.  The  effect  of  the  Resurrection  of  Jesus  upon  the  Wit- 
nesses and  their  Testimony 213 

VIII.  Examples    of    the    Unhistoric   and    Mythic   in    the 

Gospels 223 

IX.  The  same — Continued ...  263 

X.  Jesus  and  his  Miracles 300 

XI.  The  same — Continued 341 

XII.  The  same — Continued 399 

XIII.  Characteristics,  Methods  and  Motives  of  Jesus. .....  429 

XIV.  The  Men  who  prosecuted,  tried  and  executed  Jesus. .  479 

XV.  The  Arrest 486 


CONTENTS. 

CHAP.  PACK. 

XVI.  The  Trial 506 

XVII.  The  Crucifixion 521 

XVIII.  Was  he  Dead? 543 

XIX.  Theory  of  Continued  Life 588 

XX.  The  Revival 609 

XXI.  The  Escape 627 

XXII.  The  Black  Curtain  Falls 668 

XXIII.  The  Conclusion 690 


A    RATIONAL   VIEW 


OF 


JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 


CHAPTER    I. 

ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS. 

MEN'S  religious  beliefs  are  measured  by  their  de- 
velopment and  education, — chiefly  by  their  capacity  to 
comprehend  the  nature  and  source  of  causation  and  the 
various  potencies  and  manifestations  in  Nature  and  their 
connection  with  the  origin,  life  and  destiny  of  man. 
Such  beliefs  have  their  source  *and  controlling  support 
in  man's  imperishable  love  of  life  and  his  aspirations  for 
a  higher,  a  harmonious,  and  an  assured  individiial  ex- 
istence. This  fundamental,  personal  life-aspiration  is 
persistent  and  controlling  in  all  phases  of  human 
development,  and  constitutes  the  primal  fountain  of  all 
human  motives  and  the  mainspring  of  all  human  endeavor 
and  progress,  as  Mr.  Hebert  Spencer  has  so  fully  and 
ably  shown.  No  amount  cf  education  can  eradicate  it. 
No  belief  which  attempts  to  either  oppose  or  ignore  it 
can  either  be  general  or  of  long  duration.  The  develop- 


IO  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

ment  of  human  intelligence  itself  is,  directly  or  remotely, 
the  result  of  this  same  love  of  continued  and  progressive 
personal  life  and  personal  identity,  and  all  beliefs  must 
ultimately  conform  to  it. 


The  beliefs  in  an  immortal  soul  and  in  a  God  are  so 
connected  and  so  largely  interdependent,  that  a  belief 
in  our  own  immortality  immeasurably  strengthens  our 
belief  in  a  God ;  so  that  the  belief  in  Deity  is,  also,  by 
this  connection  with  the  Soul-idea,  strongly  and  per- 
sistently buttressed  and  supported  by  this  fundamen- 
tal life-aspiration.  Man  cannot,  and  ought  not,  to  give 
give  up. his  belief  in  either.  Under  the  influence  of  this 
fundamental  and  controlling  aspiration  and  with  such 
light  as  has  been  possible  to  him,  he  has,  through  all 
ages,  continued  to  stretch  forth  his  arms  towards  an 
unknown  future  and  an  Unknown  Power.  When  old 
beliefs  have  become  indefensible  and  untenable  under 
the  assaults  of  Reason  and  Development,  the  Few  may 
have  rushed  out  into  the  night  and  darkness  of  Negation, 
but  the 'mass  of  mankind  have  ever  refused  to  yield  the 
shelter  of  their  old  faiths  until  supplied  with  new  ones. 
Their  notions  of  God  and  immortality  may  be  changed, 
but  the  belief  in  their  existence  cannot  be  given  up.  The 
human  soul  cannot  live  upon  negation.  Its  natural  life- 
food  is  affirmative  belief.  Materialism  and  Atheism  are 
the  starvation  of  the  Soul.  Reason  is  first  destructive, 
before  it  is  reconstructive.  Skepticism  finds  its  legiti- 
mate but  limited  office  in  making  manifest  our  miscon- 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    II 

ceptions  and  the  necessity  of  a  reconstruction  of  our 
beliefs  : — an  office  merely  negative  and  destructive,  yet 
necessary  to  progress.  It  undermines  existing  creeds  : 
it  cannot  destroy  either  the  facts  or  the  resistless  desire 
to  know  them-.  It  destroys  only  to  be  asked  "  If  not 
this,  what  then  ?  " 


Man  has  not  erred  in  his  fundamental  aspirations  and 
aims,  since  they  are  higher  than  his  intelligence  and 
stronger  than  his  volition — are  the  fountains  of  both  of 
them.  God  and  Immortality  are  secure  beyond  all 
human  error  or  control.  The  general  belief  in  them 
will  always  be  impregnable  ;  while  the  real  fact  of  their 
existence  is  unaffected  by  human  notions  and  creeds. 
Our  present  error  lies,  not  in  recognizing  their  existence, 
but  in  fostering  and  forcing  notions  of  God  and  of 
the  soul  and  of  future  states  which  we  have  inherited 
from  by-gone  ages  of  ignorance  and  superstition — 
notions  antagonistic  to  our  advanced  intelligence  and 
unworthy  of  our  high  civilization  ;  and  also  in  basing 
our  faith  upon  evidences  which  can  no  longer  command 
the  respect,  much  less  the  support,  of  our  own  reason. 
We  err  in  clinging  to  the  methods  and  thoughts  of  an 
ignorant  and  infantile  Past  which  are  no  longer  really 
credible  and  realizable  to  us,  and  still  more  in  endeavor- 
ing to  force  its  crude  notions  upon  the  plastic  and 
credulous  minds  of  our  children,  and  thus  closing  them 
to  all  rational  doubt, — the  only  road  to  further  investiga- 
tion and  higher  light.  We  so  fear  to  loose  our  hold  upon 


12  JESUS    AND   RELIGION. 

these  great  truths,  that  we  act  as  if  our  notions  of  them 
had  some  effect  upon  the  fact  of  their  existence  ;  and  we 
would  bar  all  doubt  and  question  of  them,  lest  they 
should  be  proved  not  to  exist  at  all,  and  thus  escape  us 
forever.  We  had  rather  blindly  believe  than  risk  the 
chance  of  doubt.  This  very  fear  is  not  only  a. barrier 
to  all  progress,  but  is  proof  of  our  own  conscious  weak- 
ness and  craven,  but  smothered,  fears.  If  we  had  a 
rational  and  assured  faith  we  should  court  and  defy 
investigation.  Our  timid  fears  and  coward  hopes  are 
the  strongest  barriers  to  their  own  relief  and  to  the 
securing  of  those  higher  conceptions  which  an  exhaust- 
ive and  rational  investigation  must  inevitably  bring. 
We  yet  need  to  realize  the  simple  truths  that  facts  are 
not  controlled  by  our  opinions  and  that  the  primordial 
and  persistent  tendencies  of  Nature  are  never  mistakes, 
— however  we  may  mistake  them.  Religion  is  imperish- 
able, since  it  is  based  upon  the  ultimate  facts,  purposes 
and  end  of  all  evolution  ;  but  creeds  and  notions  ought 
to,  and  must,  vary  with  the  progressively  changing  alti- 
tude and  range  of  man's  mental  vision. 


Progressive  peoples — those  to  whom  God  has  en- 
trusted the  vanguard  and  standards  of  the  advancing 
columns  of  Humanity, — are  not  permitted  to  enjoy  the 
repose  of  inherited  beliefs.  Rest  comes  not  until  they 
can  repose  in  the  absolute  conviction  of  the  ultimate 
truth.  Their  very  progress  consists  in  the  acquisition 
of  a  higher  knowledge  and  truer  morality.  And  how- 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    13 

ever  unpleasant  it  may  be  to  drift  from  our  present 
moorings  and  provisional  havens,  and  to  battle  with  the 
storms  of  Doubt  upon  the  open  sea  of  Speculation,  or  to 
tempt  the  dangers  of  untried  deeps,  we  have  no  alterna- 
tive when  the  very  foundations  of  our  old  anchor-beds 
are  swept  away  by  the  mighty  currents  of  Progress. 
Let  us  never  fear,  however,  that  either  God  or  the  Soul 
will  cease  to  exist  because  we  have  approached  them 
through  a  false  channel.  The  Continent  to  which  the 
facts  of  Nature  pointed  Columbus  did  not  cease  to  exist 
because  his  own  labors  ended  in  the  island  of  St. 
Domingo. 


In  reviewing  and  estimating  the  religious  or  theo- 
logical notions  of  Humanity  under  the  new  lights  of 
Evolution,  we  should  be  unhampered  by  the  invariable, 
but  ever  varied  and  conflicting,  claims  of  existing  Faiths 
to  special  and  exclusive  infallibility  by  reason  of  their 
several  pretended  divine  revelations.  For,  independent 
of  the  utter  irrationality  and  impossibility  of  such  reve- 
lations, a  true  conception  of  the  nature  and  origin  of 
such  beliefs,  must  at  once  relegate  the  whole  to  the 
ordinary  grade  of  mere  human  conceptions.  '  An  impar- 
tial and  rational  review  of  the  evidences  in  this  regard 
can  leave  no  true  reason  to  doubt  that  all  existing  beliefs 
have  a  common  origin  in  human  nature  itself,  and  are 
the  necessary  outgrowths  of  man's  primal  and  childish 
ignorance  and  his  subsequent  progressive  enlightenment. 


14  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

Fortunately,  Nature  has  furnished  ample  evidence  of 
her  methods  and  progressive  steps  in  this  religious 
development  of  man.  Firstly  :  we  are  furnished  with 
the  ascending  gradation  of  intelligence  among  existing 
races  and  peoples,  with  the  appropriate  phases  of 
religious  belief  for  each  grade.  Secondly  :  we  are  fur- 
nished the  progressive  gradation  in  Time,  exhibited  by 
the  histories  of  enlightened  races  and  peoples,  showing 
the  progressive,  intellectual  and  religious  phases  through 
which  they  have  passed.  Each  of  these  gradations 
shows  the  fact  that  each  phase  of  intelligence  and  pro- 
gress has  its  corresponding  and  appropriate  phase  of 
religious  beliefs,  and  also  the  fact  that  there  is  a  real 
and  substantial  correspondence  in  the  religious  concep- 
tions and  notions  of  all  peoples  in  the  same  stage  of 
development,  and  that  such  conceptions  and  notions  are, 
in  fact,  natural  resultants  of  the  given  phase  of  develop- 
ment, with  proper  allowance  for  differences  of  race  and 
conditions.  Thirdly  :  we  have  another  exhibition  of  the 
character,  order  and  course  of  intellectual  development 
and  of  the  resultant  and  accompanying  phases  of  reli- 
gious conceptions,  in  the  mental  history  of  enlightened  in- 
dividuals, during  their  progress  from  infancy  to  manhood. 
Fourthly :  we  have  the  necessary  order  and  mode  of 
acquiring  human  knowledge  and  conceptions,  consequent 
upon  their  very  nature  and  origin  and  the  nature  and 
unity  of.  the  soul.  The  human  Soul  being  a  personal 
unit,  can  only  be  conscious  and  efficient  as  a  unit —  can 
only  think  and  act  upon  one  thing  at  a  time,  and  there- 
fore must  acquire  its  entire  knowledge  by  serial  and 
successive  impressions  and  thoughts.  Its  entire  knowl- 
edge of  objective  existence  and  of  the  facts,  laws  and 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    1$ 

relations  of  Being  must  originate  in  separate  individual 
experiences.  It  commences  its  career,  both  in  the 
individual  and  in  the  race,  in  absolute  ignorance  of  all 
things  save  itself  ;  and  is  compelled  to  win  its  way  to 
knowledge,  and  to  even  the  power  to  know,  by  separate, 
serial  individual  experiences  and  activities.  From  the 
very  nature  of  the  relative  and  experimental  knowledge 
thus  derived,  it  is  consecutive  and  dependent  and  can  only 
be  acquired  and  comprehended  in  a  certain  serial  and 
consecutive  order, — that  is  to  say,  in  the  order  from  unity 
to  multiplicity,  from  simplicity  to  complexity,  from  the 
concrete  to  the  abstract,  from  the  simple  to  the  general. 
The  human  mind  is  compelled  to  commence  with  the  a. 
b.  c.  of  everything,  and  to  win  its  way  up  by  a  progres- 
sive course  of  consecutive,  serial  accretions,  abstractions 
and  generalizations  in  which  each  progressive  achieve- 
ment is  the  product  of  prior  acquisitions.  It  cannot 
comprehend  two,  without  first  comprehending  one.  It 
can  form  no  conception  without  first  comprehending  the 
elements  and  relations  involved  in,  or  constituting,  that 
conception.  Naturally  it  does,  and,  unaided,  it  must, 
in  all  cases,  "  crawl  before  it  can  walk."  It  is  not  only 
a  fact,  therefore,  but  a  necessity,  that  man  should  have 
primarily  acquired  his  conceptions  of  causation  and  his 
generalizations  of  natural  sequences  in  an  approximately 
definite  and  consecutive  order  ;  since  in  a  certain  order 
alone  was  it  possible  for  him  to  have  comprehended 
them.  And,  although  certain  facilities  may  be  added  by 
development  and  instruction,  the  same  general  order  of 
evolution  of  ideas  and  of  mental  progress  must  still  con- 
tinue to  be  followed  by  every  individual  infant  born  even 
among  enlightened  peoples.  Consequently,  we  must 


16  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

rationally  expect,  and  shall  actually  find,  that  there  are 
certain  phases  of  belief  touching  causation  and  unseen 
powers  and  agencies,  which  are  natural  to  certain  cor- 
responding stages  of  intellectual  development,  and  that 
there  is  a  certain  corresponding  order  as  well  as  family 
likeness  in  the  successive  phases  of  religious  beliefs 
both  among  individuals  and  races.  The  stage  of 
development  governs,  and  therefore  assimilates,  their 
ideas.  And  we  find,  not  only  that  men  are  best  satisfied 
and  subserved  by  the  phase  of  religious  beliefs  and  prac- 
tices peculiar  to  their  own  stage  of  development,  but 
that  they  are  really  capable  of  comprehending  and 
appreciating  no  higher  ones.  We  may  nominally  convert 
Savage  races  to  a  higher  religion,  but  their  real,  funda- 
mental conceptions  will,  at  best,  prove  to  be  only  newly- 
named  and  slightly-modified  types  of  their  old  ones,  and 
must  still  take  their  measure  from  their  own  intellectual 
and  moral  status,  and  be  superimposed  upon  their  old 
substratum  of  superstitious  notions.  The  Christ  and 
Triune  God  of  the  converted  Feegee  are  not  identical 
conceptions  with  those  of  Dean  Stanley  or  Dr.  McCosh. 
Their  conceptions,  though  nominally  the  same,  differ  as 
widely  as  do  their  developments.  And  we -find  Voudou- 
ism  and  sorcery  still  holding  sway  over  the  nominal 
Colored  Christians  in  the  rice  fields  of  South  Carolina  as 
it  does  over  their  Mohammedan  brethren  in  Central 
Africa  and  over  their  original  fetichistic  brethren  on  the 
Congo. 

The  rational  conclusion  from  the  evidence  derived 
from  each  and  all  of  these  sources  is  uniform  and  con- 
clusive,— each  pointing  to  the  same  general  order  of 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    I/ 

intellectual  and  religious  progression  and  to  the  same 
natural  succession  of  phases  of  belief.  The  child's 
thoughts  and  the  boy's  thoughts,  after  making  the  neces- 
sary allowances  for  race-development,  education  and 
special  influences,  are  the  same  in  grade  and^similar  in 
character  in  all  times  and  in  all  lands  ;"  and  the  Savage 
Wild-man,  to-day,  thinks  the  thoughts  and  dreams  the 
dreams  that  floated  through  the  brains  of  the  ancestors 
of  the  men  of  the  Stone  Age.  Then,  as  now,  the  primi- 
tive Wild-man  was,  morally  and  intellectually,  the  simple 
Child-man.  The  nature  of  man's  knowledge,  the  pro- 
gressive steps  of  his  individual  and  race  progress,  the 
ascending  scale  of  race-developments  in  the  existing 
phases  of  human  societies  or  peoples,  and  the  historical 
scale  of  progression  of  all  races  in  their  natural  ascent 
from  savageism,  all  show  that  men's  religious  beliefs  are 
a  natural  and  law-governed  product  of  their  mental 
development  and  condition,  and  necessarily  change  with 
the  progressive  phases  of  their  intellectual  and  moral 
growth.  And  as  each  phase  of  religious  belief  is  an  out- 
growth of  its  corresponding  phase  or  stage  of  develop- 
ment, it  cannot  be  irrational,  incongruous,  or  detrimental 
to  the  very  intelligence  from  which  it  grew,  but  must,  of 
necessity,  fit  it,  and  be  conformed  to  it,  like  the  bark  of 
a  tree  or  the  shell  of  a  mollusk.  The  incongruities  and 
absurdities  in  primitive  and  lower  beliefs  which  are 
patent  to  us,  are  hidden  from  those  who  entertain  them  ; 
while  equally  gross  irrationalities  existing  in  our  own 
popular  or  personal  beliefs  now  go  unchallenged  by  our- 
selves.— only  to  be  smiled  at  in  the  future. 

What  men  will  treat  and  worship  as  their  God  is 
2 


1 8  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

determined  by  what,  as  they  conceive,  causes  and  con- 
trols their  own  being  and  destiny  and  is  the  author  of 
those  acts  and  influences  in  nature  which  affect  their 
lives  and  happiness.  How  they  will  treat  and  worship 
their  Gods,  will  depend  upon  their  notions  of  the  sup- 
posed nature,  powers  and  character  of  the  objects  or 
beings  worshipped  and  of  their  relations  with,  and 
inclinations  towards,  themselves,  and  these  will  depend 
upon  their  stage  of  development.  The  primary  purpose 
of  worship  was  the  propitiation  or  control  of  the  causal 
or  controlling  beings,  and  the  mode  and  means  of  propi- 
tiation or  control  were  those  which  were  supposed  to  be 
most  suitable  and  efficient  for  the  purpose  of  controlling 
or  influencing  a  being  of  the  conceived  nature  and 
character  of  the  being  or  object  thus  worshipped  or  pro- 
pitiated. Time,  locality  and  race  have  had  no  marked 
substantial  influence  upon  the  nature  and  order  of  such 
religious  beliefs  and  methods.  Through  many  minor 
variations  substantially  the  same  progressive  phases  and 
order  of  beliefs  have  always  and  everywhere  been  mani- 
fested ;  and  this  law-governed  order  and  character  of 
religious  progress  is  often  strikingly  manifested  by  the 
specific  similitudes  in  the  religious  notions,  rites,  customs 
and  symbols  of  people  widely  separated  in  time,  space 
and  race. 


Nature  unfolds  all  things  by  a  law-governed  process 
of  self-evolution.  Mental  progress,  including  mojal  and 
religious  development,  furnishes  no  exception  to  this 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    IQ 

necessary  and  universal  method.  The  Present  is  ever  a 
transformation  of  a  continuously  transformed  Past.  The 
entire  Past  is  but  a  practical  demonstration  of  the  Pres- 
ent— is  the  Present  in  embryo.  In  her  physical  evolu- 
tions, Nature's  materials  are  fixed  in  amount,  and  she 
forever  knits,  unravels,  and  re-knits  the  same  materials 
into  ever  brighter  and  more  complex  patterns.  In  her 
evolution  of  intelligence,  on  the  contrary,  her  material 
or  means  is  ever  improving  and  her  progress  cumula- 
tive ;  and  she  is  ever,  not  only  transforming  the  Old,  but 
superimposing  and  improving  the  New.  The  tree  of 
knowledge  and  of  intellectual  life  is  ever  germinating 
new  buds,  and  the  old  and  changing  form  is  ever  com- 
mingling with,  and  merging  into,  new  and  growing 
germs  : — the  whole  having  a  common  primordial  tap-root 
and  vital  support.  New  Religions  may  present  new  con- 
ceptions of  morals  and  duty  and  of  modes  and  objects 
of  worship,  or  may  give  higher  assurances  to  human 
aspirations,  but  they  are  ever  the  legitimate  offspring 
of  older  religions,  and  are  rarely  ever  more  than  mere 
reconstructions  and  modifications  of  older  and  borrowed 
forms  and  beliefs.  The  dogmas,  rites  and  ceremonies, 
as  well  as  the  marvels,  myths  and  legends  by  which  they 
are  supported,  which  now  swell  the  great  on-flowing 
current  of  religious  thought  and  life,  have  been  gathered 
in,  through  the  successive  ages,  from  the  countless  riv- 
ulets of  the  by-gone  thoughts  and  life-modes  of  the 
generations.  Many  of  these  primitive  notions,  forms, 
symbols  and  legends,  although  now  fused  into  our  com- 
posite beliefs  and  customs,  are  still  recognizable,  like  the 
grains  of  quartz  and  feldspar  in  a  mass  of  granite  ; 
while  others,  crystallized  by  time,  still  float  on  uncrushed, 


2O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

like  stray  ice-floes  upon  an  ocean  current.  The  youths 
of  Great  Britain,  even  now,  annually  perform  rites  once 
sacred  to  Baal,  and  indulge  in  scores  of  customs  and  in- 
cantations inherited  from  the  Druids  and  from  the  wor- 
shippers of  Balder  and  Odin.  There  was  scarcely  a  Jewish 
notion  from  that  of  a  belief  in  witchcraft  and  devil-pos- 
session— not  a  rite  from  Circumcision  to  blood-offerings 
— nor  a  symbol,  from  the  breast-plate  of  the  High-Priest 
to  the  winged  cherubim  or  symbolic  beast  upon  the  ark 
of  the  covenant,  which  was  not  borrowed  or  imitated 
fr:m  those  of  their  masters  of  Egypt,  Persia  or  Chaldea 
or  from  other  conquering  or  neighboring  peoples.  There 
is  scarcely  a  single  Christian  belief  from  that  in  a  divine 
incarnation  to  the  belief  in  a  queen  of  Heaven  and  a 
triple  God — not  a  rite  from  baptism  to  sacrificial  feasts 
— not  a  legend  from  that  of  the  Golden  *Age  in  Eden  to 
that  of  a  universal  deluge, — nor  a  moral  precept  or  prin- 
ciple, which  had  not  already  been  substantially  believed 
in  or  practiced  long  before  the  advent  of  Christianity. 
It  could  not,  indeed,  have  been  otherwise.  Even  if  these 
facts  were  not  historically  demonstrable,  it  is  impossible 
to  rationally  believe  that  a  people,  like  the  Jews,  who  had 
been  for  so  many  centuries  in  personal  as  well  as  political 
bondage  to  peoples  of  superior  knowledge  and  civiliza- 
tion'— a  people  whose  laws^  rites  and  ceremonies  had 
been  first  established  by  one  who  had  been  educated  by 
the  Egyptian  priests,  and  whose  religious  ideas  and  be- 
liefs took  shape  and  mould  under  the  pressure  of  such 
controlling  influences,  could  fail  to  have  a  borrowed  and 
composite  religion.  That  the  moral  and  religious  ideas 
and  doctrines  promulgated  in  the  New  Testament  were 
well  understood  and  taught,  in  many  lands,  as  well  as  in 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    21 

Judea,  long  before  the  reign  of  Herod  the  Great,  is  be- 
yond rational  doubt.  That  Jesus  of  Nazareth  himself 
was  singularly  indifferent  to  all  forms,  ceremonies  and 
rituals  is  still  more  certain.  And  the  fact  that  he  was 
so,  furnished  an  ample  reason  why  his  followers  should 
have  accommodated  their  doctrines  to  the  popular  forms 
and  customs  of  those  whom  they  desired  to  proselyte, 
and  should  have  modified  and  appropriated  these  accus- 
tomed rituals  and  symbols  of  the  people  to  the  use  of 
their  new  Church.  Jesus  was  not  only  indifferent  to 
forms,  but  expressly  accepted  the  established  Jewish  re- 
ligion, and  endeavored  to  infuse  his  own  ideas  and 
spirit  into  its  existing  laws.  He  professed  to  re-interpret 
and  supplement  rather  than  to  overthrow.  His  success- 
ors followed  his  example,  and  wisely  won  their  way  by 
being  "  all  things  to  all  men,"  and  by  cheerfully  accom- 
modating their  new  spirit  to  the  accustomed  rites,  cer- 
emonies and  symbols  of  both  Jew  and  Pagan, — ryielding 
form  for  the  sake  of  substance.  Those  features  and 
doctrines  which  distinguished  the  Christian  religion 
from  the  religion  from  whose  bosom  it  sprung  and  from 
the  surrounding  religions  and  philosophies  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  were  chiefly  Buddhistic  in  their  character  and 
perhaps  in  their  origin.  Its  spirit  and  morality  was 
essentially  Buddhistic.  So  that,  in  a  broad  sense,  it  may 
be  characterized  as  the  infusion  of  the  Spirit  and  ideas 
of  Buddhism  into  the  modified  body  and  forms  of  the 
religions  and  philosophies  of  the  Roman  Empire, — the 
whole  engrafted  on  a  tap-root  of  Judaism.  Like  all 
other  religions — it  was  an  evolution  a  new  progressive 
outgrowth  from  existing  beliefs  and  customs  ;  and 
whether  its  theological  notions  and  its  mystic  rights  and 


22  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

characteristic  moralities  were  borrowed  from  one  source 
or  another,  it  is  certain  they  were,  in  the  main,  not  pure 
inventions,  but  grew  up,  and  took  their  nutriment  from 
those  older  beliefs,  symbols  and  customs  which  had 
grown,  like  wild  flowers,  fresh  from  the  growing  aspira- 
tions, desires,  sympathies  and  intelligence  of  successive 
generations.  Even  the  legends  and  myths  concerning 
Jesus  personally,  are  largely  moulded  from  borrowed 
materials.  Combine,  modify  and  reform  as  it  may,  or 
might,  its  ancestral  flesh-marks  remain,  and  the  odor  of 
the  soil  from  which  it  sprung  still  clings  about  it.  The 
magic  effects  produced  by  the  mere  name  "Jesus,"  by  the 
chips  of  the  true  cross,  by  sacred  shrines  and  consecrated 
bells,  by  the  bones  of  pious  anchorites,  by  the  blood- 
stained garments  of  martyrs,  and  by  the  toe-nails  and 
other  relics  of  Saints,  as  well  as  its  witch'craft  and  devil- 
possession,  give  forth  even  odors  of  Fetichism  which  it 
is  impossible  to  rationally  misconceive,  and  which  point 
to  an  origin  in  the  grimmest  and  remotest  past.  To 
that  past  let  us  turn  for  their  true  origin  and  significance. 


ORIGIN    OF    RELIGIOUS    IDEAS. 

Man's  earliest  and  lowest  mental  condition  cannot 
be  directly  known,  since  all  existing  races  of  men  have 
already  made  some  progress  in  mental  development ; 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    23 

and  neither  their  ancestors,  nor  those  of  the  more  civ- 
ilized races,  either  did  leave,  or  could  have  left,  any  record 
or  evidences  of  their  beliefs ;  since  they  were  wholly 
without  arts.  Still  we  may,  as  we  have  seen,  rationally 
approach  the  primordial  mental  condition  of  our  Race 
by  means  of  our  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  our  intel- 
ligence and  its  necessary  origin  and  order  of  acquisition, 
aided  by  the  analogies  furnished  by  the  mental  manifes- 
tations and  progress  of  individual  childhood.  The  low- 
est existing  races,  however,  furnish  us  examples  of  men- 
tal conditions  and  development  sufficiently  primitive  for 
our  present  purposes, — and,  indeed,  too  low  for  our  clear 
realization.  There  still  exist  races  of  men  who,  having 
the  passions  and  instincts  of  the  brute,  are  nearly  in- 
fantile in  their  mental  development  and  attainments. 
We  still  find  men  (such  as  the  wild  Dyaks  of  Borneo) 
who  have  attained  no  conception  of  modesty  or  of  the 
family  relations;  whose  children  are  begotten,  nurtured 
and  abandoned  like  those  of  animals ;  who  rave  and 
prowl  through  the  forest  and  jungle  singly,  like  beasts 
of  prey  ;  who  subsist  like  brutes,  and,  like  brutes,  die 
alone  and  unburied ;  who  could  scarcely  command  a 
score  of  words  for  their  entire  vocabulary,  or  add  two 
to  three,  or  comprehend  the  simplest  moral  principles  ; 
and  who  have  no  religious  rites  or  ceremonies. 

The  mental  condition  of  even  these  existing  wild- 
men  is  scarcely  conceivable  to  us.  Outside  of  their 
animal  appetites  and  the  indiscriminate  propagation  of 
their  species,  their  minds  are  absorbed  in  their  efforts  to 
secure  food  and  to  avoid  danger.  Their  one  prevailing 
and  ever-haunting  emotion  is  fear.  Ignorant  of  the 


24  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

agencies  and  laws  of  Nature,  all  things  either  are,  or 
may  become,  dangerous  to  them.  The  Unknown,  with 
its  swarms  of  mysterious  spirits  and  menacing  shadows, 
fills  the  air,  the  streams,  the  forest,  with  enemies  which 
meet  him  at  every  turn,  and  dog  his  footsteps  through 
life.  His  real  and  natural  enemies  are  supplemented  by 
a  host  of  others  made  so  by  his  ignorance  and  stupidity  ; 
while  even  this  number  is  inconceivably  multiplied  by 
his  conception  of  causation.  In  direct  analogy  to  his 
own  action  he  conceives  all  motions  and  effects  what- 
ever to  be  personal  and  voluntary,  and  regards  all  ob- 
jects in  nature  as  having  an  invisible,  conscious  self  like 
his  own  mental  self.  In  every  untried  object,  therefore, 
there  may  lurk  a  foe  to  be  feared,  hated  and  avoided. 
A  wild  and  restless  fear  of  both  visible  and  invisible 
foes  and  of  evil  spirits  pervades  his  life,  and  colors  all 
his  serious  thoughts  and  conduct.  The  Unknown  is 
ever  an  object  of  dread  and  hate  to  him,  since  it  not 
only  may  be  dangerous  to  him,  in  known  or  unknown 
ways,  but  his  ignorance  of  it  will  probably  make  it  so ; 
while  the  very  fact  of  its  being  unknown  makes  the 
danger  immeasurable,  uncertain,  and  dreadful. 


The  question  here  presented  is,  whether  this  wild, 
haunted  savage  of  the  primtive  or  lowest  races,  can  be 
said  to  have  a  religion.  Can  we  find  in  this  brutal  na- 
ture and  almost  brute-intelligence  the  true  germs  of  the 
later  and  higher  religions — the  seeds  even  of  that  reli- 
gion whose  incense  once  floated  over  the  blood-stained 
altar  at  Jerusalem,  and  of  that  of  its  offspring  whose 


.  ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    2g 

"  Te  Deum  laudimus  "  still  thunders  through  the  aisles 
of  St.  Peter's  ?  There  has  been  much  doubt  as  to  the 
proper  answer  to  this  question.  The  later  and  better 
evidences  and  authorities,  however,  would  seem  to  settle 
the  propriety  of  an  affirmative  answer.  While  we  have 
had  much  incompetent  and  biased  testimony  as  to  the 
capacity  of  Savages  in  this  regard,  the  true  difficulty 
would  seem  to  be  one  of  definition  rather  than  fact. 
That  there  are  men  who  have  no  notion  of  a  God,  of 
Creation,  of  a  First  Cause,  or  of  religious  obligations  of 
any  kind,  and  who  pay  no  worship  to  good  Spirits,  is  be- 
yond rational  question.  And  yet  it  is  equally  true,  that 
Religion  germinates,  and  has  its  root  deep  down,  in  this 
lowest  and  most  childish  Savageism.  As  the  seed  in  the 
dark  earth-mould  contains  the  germ  and  potency  of  the 
lordly  forest-tree,  even  so,  in  this  grim  night  of  human 
ignorance,  we  find  that  fear  and  hate  of  the  Unknown — 
of  the  uncomprehended  agencies  of  nature,  which, 
through  the  long  ages  of  human  development,  grew  and 
changed  until  it  ripened  into  a  religion  of  hope  and  ador- 
ation. As  man's  ignorance  has  been  gradually  trans- 
formed into  knowledge,  his  ideas  of  causation  have  ex- 
panded and  his  fear  of  the  unknown  sources  or  agencies 
of  natural  manifestations  has  been  transformed  into  con- 
fidence and  love.  That  the  germs  of  our  religions  should 
be  different  from,  and  even  opposite  to,  their  developed 
and  final  characters,  is  a  result  which  is  natural  to  Evo- 
lution ;  and  however  the  common,  primordial  germ  may 
become  modified  by  varying  conditions  and  influences  or 
may  be  metamorphosed  by  development,  it  is  as  much  a 
part  of  the  common  growth  and  history  as  the  root  is  a 
part  of  the  tree. 


26  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

Passing  from  the  imperfectly  understood  mental 
status  and  condition  of  the  Wild-man  to  that  of  the 
Savage  we  find  that  man  has  here  taken  a  distinct  step 
in  social,  intellectual  and  religious  development.  We 
find  him  already  on  the  threshold  of  the  Social  State, 
having  some  notions  of  the  family  relations,  also  loose 
political  associations  governed  by  patriarchs  or  chiefs, 
and  some  crude  notions  of  morality.  Corresponding 
with  this  social  and  intellectual  advance  we  find  a  reli- 
gious progression  introducing  us  to  the  phase  of  religion 
known  as  Fetichism.  In  this  stage  of  development  men 
still  regard  all  causation  as  personal  and  voluntary,  and 
continue  to  consider  it  as  generally  direct  and  immediate, 
if  not  wholly  so.  Their  religion  is  still  a  religion  of  fear. 
In  treating  of  it,  Sir  John  Lubbock  says — "  We  regard 
the  Deity  as  good  ;  they  look  upon  him  as  evil ;  we 
submit  ourselves  to  him  ;  they  endeavor  to  obtain  con- 
trol over  him  ;  we  feel  the  necessity  of  accounting  for 
the  blessings  by  which. we  are  surrounded;  they  think, 
that  the  blessings  come  of  themselves,  and  attribute  all 
evil  to  the  influence  of  malignant  beings.  These  charac- 
teristics are  not  exceptional  and  rare.  On  the  contrary, 
I  shall  attempt  to  show  —  (continues  Lubbock,)  that, 
though  the  religions  of  lower  races  have  received  different 
names,  they  agree  in  their  general  characteristics,  and 
are  but  phases  of  one  sequence,  having  the  same  origin 
and  oassing  through  similar,  if  not  identical  stages." 

It  is  almost  impossible  for  us  to  comprehend  the 
childish  notions  of  the  Fetichist — to  comprehend  how 
adult  men  can  believe  in  the  existence  and  hidden  power 
and  malignity  of  the  Spirits  of  what  we  know  to  be  in- 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    2J 

animate  objects,  and  that  all  motions  and  effects  are  due 
to  direct  conscious  or  voluntary  powers  residing  within 
the  thing  apparently  initiating  them — men  who  have  no 
conception  whatever  of  natural  causation,  and  but  little, 
if  any,  of  secondary  causation.  To  such  men  anything 
may  become  a  fetich  or  controlling  potency.  Any 
chance  notion  derived  from  a  single  coincidence — the 
merest  casual  concomitance  or  an  apparent  relation  be- 
tween an  object  and  an  effect — is  sufficient  to  suggest 
one,  or  it  may  be  adopted  on  trial  and  be  childishly  ac- 
cepted or  rejected  as  chance  or  success  or  failure  may 
determine.  It  may  represent  a  human  being,  or  be  a 
stone  or  a  pebble,  some  seed  or  herb,  the  part  of  an  ani- 
mal, or  any  "  villanous  compound "  of  animal  or  vege- 
table matter.  Not  only  elemental  phenomena,  but 
disease,  death  and  personal  disasters  and  good  luck  are 
regarded  as  under  the  control  of  these  fetichistic  agen- 
cies,— even  the  affections,  capacities  and  conduct  of 
individuals.  There  is  also  a  singular  notion  of  the  effi- 
ciency of  representation  accompanying  and  influencing 
their  notions  of  Causation.  They  conceive  that  parts  of 
a  being  or  thing,  or  even  .its  name  or  image  represents 
the  whole  : — for  example,  that  parts  of  a  courageous 
animal  will  give  courage  to  the  person  using  it,  or  that, 
by  having  an  image  or  a  bit  of  the  clothing,  the  hair,  or 
the  spittle  of  a  person,  they  have  the  means  of  charming 
or  bewitching  them  as  effectually  as  if  they  were  person- 
ally present.  In  fact,  fetichism  is  nothing  more  than 
primitive  and  unadulterated  sorcery  and  Witchcraft — a 
belief  that  inanimate  objects  not  only  have  potency  for 
good  and  evil,  but  that  such  potency  is  due  to  a  hidden 
spirit  within  them,  in  analogy  to  the  conscious  Ego  in 


28  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

man.  It  is  not  to  be  identified  with  Idolatry  or  the  wor- 
ship of  divine  images,  nor  with  Nature-worship.  Feti- 
chism  is  not  real  worship  or  adoration  of  a  good  being  at 
all ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  devoted  to  the  circumven- 
tion or  control  of  malevolent  or  inimical  beings,  or  to 
securing  their  neutrality,  favor  or  aid. 

What  it  further  and  mainly  behooves  us  to  note  in 
this  first  step  in  man's  religious  development  is,  that  it 
is  the  product  of,  and  corresponds  with,  an  equivalent 
phase  of  intellectual  progress — a  phase  embracing  some 
vague  conceptions  of  general  powers  in  nature  of  a  per- 
sonal or  conscious  character,  including  some  of  an  indif- 
ferent or  even  friendly  nature,  and  also  the  experiences 
and  ideas  inducing  the  first  rude  attempts  to  aggregate 
into  social  and  political  unions  as  families  and  septs ; 
that  it  is  the  inimical  powers  or  spirits,  alone,  which  are 
propitiated,  through  fear  of  the  consequences  of  their 
enmity — the  friendly  ones  being  supposed  to  be  right 
already  ;  that  their  gods,  if  they  can  be  called  such,  are 
beings  with  like  natures,  needs,  appetites  and  passions  as 
themselves  and  are  to  be  influenced  and  controlled  by 
like  means  and  methods  as  would  be  efficient  with  human 
enemies ;  and  that  the  bribes  or  propitiatory  offerings, 
consequently,  which  are  presented  to  them,  are  such  as 
would  be  acceptable  to  themselves  or  a  human  enemy, 
— mainly  meats,  fruits,  rice  and  other  foods,  whose  hidden 
spirit  they  suppose  to  be  as  palatable  and  neccessary  to 
their  unseen  spiritual  enemies  as  the  visible  portions 
are  to  themselves : — a  notion  exhibited  by  our  ancestors 
when  they  sought  the  houses  of,  and  left  food  and  water 
for,  the  fairies,  and  which  is  still  retained  and  exemplified 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    2  9 

by  our  Indian  tribes,  who  continue  to  place  food,  weapons, 
&c.,  in  the  graves,  or  near  the  bodies,  of  their  dead  for 
use  after  death,  well  knowing  that  the  visible  part  of 
these  articles  remain  unused  and  undisturbed.  In  short, 
to  keep  his  fetich  and  invisible  enemies  in  a  good 
humor,  and  to  influence  them,  the  Fetichist  feeds  and 
flatters,  and  even  scolds,  threatens  and  abuses  them  ac- 
cording to  his  notions  of  their  nature  : — a  favorite  mode 
being  to  frighten  them.  Here,  we  find  the  germ  and 
origin  of  religious  sacrifices  or  propitiatory  offerings  to 
the  Gods.  In  the  rain-doctors,  witch-doctors,  sorcerers 
and  medicine-men  who  are  called  forth  by  this  phase  of 
beliefs,  we  also  have  the  legitimate  progenitors  of  our 
priests  and  physicians.  In  the  primitive  belief  in  the 
substantial  reality  of  dreams  and  visions  and  in  the 
superhuman  and  sacred  character  of  the  hallucinations 
and  illusory  visions  of  the  morbid  and  insane,  born  in 
this  childish  age  of  literalism  and  appearances,  we  find, 
also,  the  fountains  of  all  future  beliefs  in  prophecy  and 
inspiration. 


A  still  more  advanced  phase  of  Religion  is  known  as 
Shamanism.  Here  we  find,  not  only  a  still  further  gen- 
eralization of  the  potencies  of  Nature,  but  a  vague  con- 
ception of  beings  of  a  different  nature  from  that  of  mortal 
men-beings  of  a  divine  essence  and  nature.  The  Gods 
of  the  Shamanite  are  no  longer  the  enemies  of  man,  but 
neither  are  they  his  friends  and  guardians.  They  live 


3O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

remote  and  apart  from  humanity  and  are  indifferent  to 
their  conduct  or  affairs.  They  are  unapproachable  by 
ordinary  mortals,  and  can  only  be  communicated  with 
through  the  medium  of  a  Shaman — a  kind  of  priestly 
"  Convulsionair  "  or  inspired  Dervish,  who  is  sometimes, 
when  the  fit  is  on,  permitted  to  have  intercourse  with 
them,  and  to  even  visit  them  in  their  distant  abodes. 
Accompanying  this  progress  in  religion  and  intelligence, 
we  find,  also,  the  corresponding  advance  in  social 
progress  and  political  generalizations.  Shamanism  is 
found  flourishing  among  such  vast,  barbaric  hordes  as 
roam  over  the  undefined  countries  of  central  Asia  and 
give  an  equally  undefined  allegiance  to  some  distant  and 
unapproachable  emperor  or  khan. 


Advancing  another  step  we  find  Anthropomorphism. 
In  this  phase  of  progress  men  worship  men-shaped  Gods 
— deified  Ancestors,  Heroes  and  Benefactors  and  the 
personified  powers  of  Nature.  Even  their  highest  Gods 
are  still  a  part  of  Nature — are  its  offspring,  not  its  crea- 
tors. Although  endowed  with  divine  and  imperishable 
natures,  they  have'  man-like  forms,  intelligence,  frailties, 
passions  and  appetites,  and  human  capacities  for  want 
and  suffering  ;  although  these  characteristics  are  vari- 
ously modified  from  those  of  men.  It  has  been  plausibly 
contended,  indeed,  that  the  very  conception  of  such  Gods 
arose  from  the  deification  of  men. 

It  is  in  this  phase  or  stage  that  idolatry  begins  to 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    3! 

play  its  important  part  in  man's  psychical  development. 
By  adopting  representative  images  as  aids  to  the  sen- 
suous realization  of  unknown  and  invisible  deities,  Reli- 
gion gave  a  new  and  mighty  stimulant  to  intellectual  de- 
velopment, by  calling  forth  the  genius,  and  inspiring  the 
energies,  of  the  poet,  the  sculptor,  the  painter  and  the 
architect  in  the  idealization  and  representation  of  imagi- 
nary Gods,  angels,  deified  heroes  and  their  achievements, 
and  in  the  erection  of  altars  and  temples  for  their  resi- 
dence and  worship.  Idolatry  may  be  said  to  have  been 
the*  mother  of  the  fine  arts. 

It  is  in  this  anthropomorphic  phase,  also,  that  we  find 
the  tendency  to  generalize  and  grade  personal  causation 
most  signally  manifested,  and  witness  the  process  of  ul- 
timating  secondary  causation  and  natural  sequences  in 
First  Cause  and  Creator  of  all  things  and  a  creation  by 
fiat.  In  examining  natural  phenomena  and  observing  the 
order  and  sequences  of  these  natural  manifestations,  men 
could  not  fail  to  ultimately  observe,  that  there  was  a 
more  or  less  regular  gradation  in  the  importance  of  nat- 
ural objects  and  causes,  and  a  more  or  less"  consecutive 
subordination  and  dependence  of  natural  agencies  and 
powers,  and  that  the  multiplied  manifestations  in  nature 
tended  to  mount  up  towards  common  and  ever  fewer 
sources.  They  could  not  rank  the  Naiad  of  the  fountain 
with  the  Goddess  of  the  Sea,  nor  Aurora  with  the  God  of 
day. 

This  tendency  towards  a  final  generalization,  indeed, 
must  have  gradually  reached  some  kind  of  culmination 
even  under  the  more  distinctly  fetichistic  conception  of 


32  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

causation,  when,  as  yet,  men  regarded  all  objects  as  self- 
efficient  and  all  causes  alike  voluntary  and  internal. 
From  this  standpoint,  an  observation  of  the  visible  phe- 
nomena of  the  Universe  would  naturally  lead  men 
to  place  the  Sun  and  Earth  at  the  head  of  the  hierarchy 
of  natural  powers — the  one  as  masculine,  the  other 
feminine.  Such  a  generalization,  however,  would  not 
be  reached  without  there  having  arisen  some  vague 
suggestions  and  questionings  as  to  the  origin  and 
primal  source  of  all  things — some  conjectures  and 
vague  conceptions  of  a  First  Cause  or  Unknown  Power 
existing  prior  to  all  visible  bodies,  or  at  least  dominating 
them.  Thus  there  was  formed  the  primary  strata  or 
plain,  as  it  were,  of  religious  beliefs. 

When  the  more  developed  minds  ceased  to  believe  in 
the  self -efficiency  of  inanimate  objects,  or  that  all  things 
were  animate,  they  necessarily  assigned  their  actions 
and  government  to  other  efficiencies  ;  and  as  they  had 
no  conception  of  any  causation  but  that  which  was  vol- 
untary, they  attributed  such  actions  and  control  to  imag- 
inary, invisible  beings,  or  to  personal  Gods.  This  change 
in  the  conception  or  notion  of  the  sources  of  causation, 
however,  did  not  materially  affect  the  previous  gradation 
of  powers  or  Gods,  further  than  to  more  specially  define 
and  co-ordinate  them  ;  but  merely  substituted  separate 
personal  movers  and  controllers  for  the  old  hidden  spirits 
of  the  objects  themselves  and  the  vague  idea  of  some 
unknown  original  Power  : — causing  a  worship  of  the  in- 
visible personal  Rulers  or  Gods  of  natural  phenomena 
instead  of  the  phenomena  themselves.  Thus,  Apollo 
and  Diana  were  substituted  for  Sol  and  Luna. 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    33 

As  this  advanced  step,  however,  would  be  originally 
attained  by  the  more  advanced  minds,  it  would  not 
destroy  the  previous  popular  notions  or  worship,  but 
would  be  superimposed  upon  them  ;  and  there  would  be 
and  was,  two  co-existing  and  approximately-correspond- 
ing hierarchies  of  Gods ; — the  one  being  that  of  the 
phenomenal  objects  and  manifestations  themselves,  the 
other  that  of  their  supposed  invisible  Rulers.  This 
would  seem  to  have  been  both  the  natural  and  actua 
order  of  intellectual  and  religious  development. 

The  first  tendency  and  result  of  this  gradation  of 
natural  objects  and  powers  was,  not  to  finally  unify  all 
causation,  but  to  subordinate  and  rank  the  powers  of 
Nature  ; — giving  a  hierarchy  of  Gods,  with  a  chief  or 
supreme  head — a  God-of-Gods ;  and  thus  bringing  man 
to  the  very  threshold  of  Monotheism.  From  the  belief 
in  a  Supreme  or  chief  God  in  nature,  the  ascent  to  a 
belief  in  a  Sole  anthropomorphic  Creator  and  Ruler  of 
the  Universe  may  require  time  and  perhaps  favoring 
conditions,  but  such  a  result  was  inevitable  unless 
human  development  had  been  wholly  arrested.  When- 
ever the  human  mind  departed  from  its  primitive  con- 
ception of  the  imminence  and  directness  of  causation., — 
or  of  self-causation,  and  accepted  the  notions  of  outside 
causation  and  secondary  or  remote  causation,  by  substi- 
tuting imaginary  personal  agencies  for  inherent  powers, 
and  taking  incitement  or  inducement  and  sequence  for 
cause  and  causation,  there  could  be  no  final  and  legiti- 
mate pause  until  a  personal  First  Cause  was  reached. 
Anthropomorphic  Monotheism  seems  to  have  been  more 
definitely  and  early  attained  by  the  Semitic  peoples 
than  any  other,  and  it  is  with  its  origin  among  the 

3 


34  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

Abrahamic  branch  of  that  race  that  we  feel  the  deepest 
interest,  and  with  which  it  will  be  sufficient  to  here 
concern  ourselves. 


ISRAELITISH    MONOTHEISM. 

We  find  in  the  Jewish  book  of  Genesis  the  early 
conceptions  of  the  Jews  in  relation  to  the  general  crea- 
tion, to  the  nature  and  character  of  the  Divine  Powers 
and  of  their  relations  to  man,  to  the  origin  of  Evil,  and 
to  the  primal  creation  and  condition  or  state  of  man  and 
the  causes  and  order  of  his  earlier  steps  in  knowledge 
and  mental  progress  ; — all  embraced  in  a  supposed  his- 
tory of  these  early  facts  and  relations,  and  expressed  in 
that  concrete,  narrative  and  figurative  form  which  is 
alone  possible  to  peoples  who  are  as  yet  incapable  of 
speaking  or  even  thinking  in  the  abstract.  This  exposi- 
tion furnishes  us,  not  only  the  appropriate  and  expected 
phase  of  beliefs  appertaining  to  the  then  existing  stage 
of  their  mental  development,  but  an  unusually  sagacious 
notion  of  the  true  primitive  state  of  man  and  of  the 
order  and  mode  of  his  subsequent  progress  towards 
enlightenment.  From  Genesis  we  learn,  that  prior  to 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    3$ 

Abraham  his  people  were  Polytheists,  with  the  taint 
of  Fetichism  still  strong  upon  them.  We  find,  that 
Abraham's  father  worshipped  other  Gods  besides  Je- 
hovah-Elohim — the  Lord  God ;  and  that,  even  in  the 
time  of  Jacob,  the  father  of  Rebecca  had  his  little  house- 
hold Gods  or  fetiches,  and  that  his  daughter  Rebecca 
greatly  outraged  him,  when  leaving  the  paternal  home, 
by  stealing  them  and  hiding  them  in  her  "  camel 
furniture." 

Prior  to  the  time  of  Moses  they  evidently  nad  not 
reached  a  conception  of  Ultimate  Being,  but,  at  best, 
only  an  anthropomorphic  conception  of  Supreme  or 
dominant  power, — represented  by  the  chief  of  the  Elohim 
— the  Lord  of  the  Heavenly  Host.  It  was  Moses  who 
introduced  to  them  the  Egyptian  conception  of  ultimate 
Essential  Existence  itself — the  "  I  Am,"  who  "  is,  was, 
and  is  to  be."  This  conception  is  a  conception  of  one- 
ness— an  ultimate  conception  lying  back  of  all  imper- 
sonations of  mere  powers  or  attributes,  and  formed  the 
true  basis  of  Monotheism.  And  it  is  this  Egyptian 
conception,  by  its  mystic  and  unspeakable  name  of 
"Jehovah,"  that  Moses  proposed  to  the  Israelites  as  the 
one  true  and  ultimate  God,  and  which  he  induced  them 
to  accept  as  the  "  God  of  their  fathers,"  although  he 
expressly  told  them  that,  as  Jehovah,  he  was  not  known 
by  their  fathers, — that  is,  by  His  name  indicating 
Ultimate  Existence  or  self-existent  Being. 


36  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

The  first  account  in  Genesis  of  the  cosmical  creation 
was  written  by  an  author  who  uses  the  plural  word  Elo- 
him  or  Gods  to  express  the  Creative  Powers,  and  who 
was  evidently  unacquainted  with  even  the  name,  Jehovah. 
The  recorder  or  transcriber  of.  the  second  account,  being 
that  of  the  formation  of  man  and  of  his  subsequent  condi- 
tion and  history,  (abruptly  commencing  with  the  4th  verse 
of  the  second  chapter,)  could  not  have  lived  earlier  than 
the  Mosaic  Age,  since  he  was  acquainted  with  the  name, 
Jehovah,  and  prefixes  it  to  the  original  Elohim  to  identify 
him  with  the  old  Polytheistic  conception  of  the  Supreme 
Power  —  the  patriarchal  Lord  of  the  Heavens.  The 
whole  language  of  the  narrative,  however,  shows  that  the 
idea  of  a  plurality  of  Gods  was  in  the  mind  of  the 
original  author.  Not  only  is  the  plural  Elohim  used  to 
express  the  personal  creating  powers,  but  the  Gods  are 
represented  as  consulting  together  concerning  the  crea- 
tion, and  as  using  language  only  applicable  to  a  plurality 
of  Gods — such  as  "  now  let  us  make  man  in  our  own 
image,"  *  *  "and  ye  shall  be  as  Gods,"  *  *  * 
"  Behold,  the  man  has  become  as  one  of  its,"  and  the 
like  expressions  of  plurality.  These  palpably  plural 
expressions  cannot  be  explained  as  referring  to  a  single 
"  Truine  God,"  since  such  language  is  never  used  by,  or 
about,  Jehovah  in  the  writings  of  subsequent  Monotheists, 
nor  was  the  idea  of  a  trinity  ever  entertained  bv  any  of 
the  Abrahamic  peoples. 

Such  language  as  was  used  by  the  Israelites  to 
Shihon  shows  that,  even  at  that  late  period,  they  recog- 
nized the  actual  existence  of  other  Gods,  —  namely, 
"Wilt  thou  possess  that  which  thy  God 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    3/ 

thee  ?  So,  whomsoever  the  Lord  (Jehovah)  out  God 
shall  drive  out  before  us,  them  will  we  possess  " — (Judges 
xxiv.  n).  Here  then  is  a  distinct  recognition  of  two 
distinct  Gods,  each  having  equal  and  actual  existence 
and  active  efficiency.  The  very  fact,  indeed,  that  the 
Israelites  were  so  constantly  prone  to  fall  back  upon  the 
worship  of  the  old  Gods,  is  conclusive  of  the  fact  of 
their  recent  or  imperfect  conversion  from  Polytheism 
and  of  their  inability  to  appreciate  the  higher  conception 
and  worship  of  Jehovah,  and  of  their  consequent  ten- 
dency to  revert  to  their  old  notions  and  practices.  Even 
Moses  seems  to  respect  their  hereditary  notions  in  the 
Decalogue  itself.  It  does  not  assert,  or  imply,  that 
there  is  no  other  God  but  Jehovah,  but  demands  that  the 
Israelites  shall  worship  Him,  and  "have  no  other  Gods 
before  Him  :  "  Seeming  to  imply,  rather  than  deny,  the 
existence  of  such  other  Gods.  Of  a  like  import  is  the 
command,  "  Thou  shalt  not  revile  the  Gods" — (Exodus 
xxii.  28.) 


The  facts  would  seem  to  be,  that  Abraham  had 
been  reared  in  the  Chaldean  faith  in,  and  worship  of, 
the  Heavenly  Powers, — chief  among  whom  was  Baal, 
the  Sun-God — the  Lord  of  the  Heavens ;  that,  being 
inspired  by  the  idea  of  becoming  the  father  and  founder 
of  a  separate  People,  he  "  moved  West "  into  Caanan  ; 
that,  in  pursuance  of  the  common  custom,  he  selected 


38  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

a  patron  Deity  as  his  special  object  of  worship,  inspired 
by  the  hope  that  he  should  thus  secure  His  special  pro- 
tection and  patronage  for  himself  and  his  descendants  ; 
and  with  a  magnanimity  worthy  of  his  high  aspirations 
he  selected  the  chief  of  his  ancestral  Gods,  and  vowed 
that  he  and  his  descendants  would  worship  Him,  and 
Him  alone,  in  consideration  of  His  special  favor  and  pro- 
tection ;  and  that,  in  pursuance  of  this  supposed  covenant, 
when  meeting  with  Melchisedec  in  Caanan,  and  finding 
him  to  be  a  priest  of  this  same  "  most  high  God"  he  paid 
tithes  to  him  as  the  representative  of  his  own  chosen 
God.  Thus-,  it  would  seem  that,  while  Abraham  wor- 
shipped but  one  God,  he  did  not  disbelieve  in  the  exist- 
ence of  others,  nor  conceive  that  his  patron  God  was 
Ultimate  Existence  itself,  but  the  all-powerful  Heavenly 
Ruler. 


Having  once  entered  into  this  perpetual  covenant  for 
practical  Monotheism,  the  real  Monotheistic  idea  would 
be  the  more  readily  developed.  Perpetually  covenanted, 
and  exclusively  devoted,  to  one  God,  and  under  the  sole 
and  potent  influence  of  Moses  and  of  a  powerful  and 
vitally-interested  hereditary  priesthood,  who  were  jeal- 
ously devoted  to  the  worship  of  this  sole  God  and  were 
living  upon  the  sacrifices  and  offerings  at  His  altars,  the 
conception  and  final  triumph  of  Monotheism  could  not 
be  doubtful.  Once  under  such  potent  and  exclusive 
guidance,  and  fighting  for  their  lives  and  most  sacred 
interests,  through  ages  of  cruel  and  exterminating  wars, 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    39 

under  the  sole  banner  and  protection  of  Jehovah,  and 
against  nations  worshipping  and  fighting  under  other 
and  opposing  Gods,  the  Israelites  naturally  came  to 
finally  regard  all  other  Gods  than  their  own  Jehovah  as 
antagonistic  and  inimical  powers — as  objects  of  dread 
and  hatred,  and,  for  these  very  reasons,  as  also  evil  and 
wicked  beings.  Thus,  the  hated  Gods  of  their  enemies 
degenerated  into  evil  beings  or  devils  : — the  God  Baal- 
zebub  or  Beelzebub  becoming  the  chief  of  devils.  Thus, 
the  solely-worshipped  Jehovah  finally  came  to  stand  con- 
fronting, not  "  other  Gods,"  but  a  hierarchy  of  devils. 

With  all  the  potent  Monotheistic  influences  operating 
upon  them,  however,  the  priests  could  not  prevent  the 
Israelites  from  exhibiting  the  strongest  .proclivity  to 
revert  to  their  old  polytheistic  notions  and  practices.  It 
was  only  when  dangers  and  misfortunes  menaced  or  over- 
whelmed them,  that  their  fears  and  enmities  fully  over- 
come their  old  polytheistic  proclivities, — to  which  they 
again  and  again  yielded. 


IMPROVED    CONCEPTIONS. 


This  progress  towards  the  unification  and  ultimation 
of  causation  was  accompanied  by  a  marked  progress  in 


4<D  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

their  conceptions  of  the  nature  and  character  of  their 
Deity.  The  difference  between  the  God  of  the  Patri- 
archs and  that  of  Hilel,  Gamaliel  and  Josephus  is  even 
more  marked  than  between  that  of  the  latter  and  the 
advanced  Christians  of  our  time.  Beyond  the  name' 
there  was  little  in  common  between  the  earliest  and 
latest  Jewish  Monotheists.  The  old,  infantile  and  crude 
conception  has  grown  out  of  all  realization,  if  not  out  of 
all  recognition.  We  scarcely  repress  a  smile,  indeed, 
when  we  read  the  na'fve  accounts  of  God's  nature,  feel- 
ings and  actions  in  the  earlier  Jewish  records: — when,  for 
example,  we  are  told  that  God  walked  about  with  men 
and  conversed  familiarly  with  them ;  that  after  God  had 
made  all  things  and  pronounced  the  whole  to  be  very 
good,  the  creatures  that  He  had  made,  so  upset  his  plans, 
that  He  was  greatly  vexed,  and  sorely  repented  that  He 
had  made  man  at  all.  How  very  primitive  and  childlike 
this  is  !  Or  this,  again,  of  Jacob  actually  wrestling  hip- 
and-thigh  with  God,  and  holding  God  in  spite  of  Him- 
self, after  God  had  broken  Jacob's  thigh  in  the  tussle ! 
With  what  unconscious  simplicity,  again,  is  it  related 
how  Abraham  chatted  with  the  Lord  about  his  affairs, 
and  laughed  at  His  promise  that  Sarah,  who  was  then 
90  years  of  age,  should  bear  a  son, "until  the  old  man 
was  so  convulsed  with  his  sense  of  the  ridiculousness  of 
the  idea,  that  he  fell  prostrate  on  the  earth ; — how  the 
Lord  visited  Abraham  at  his  tent,  sat  at  his  door  and 
washed  his  feet,  ate  dinner  with  the  patriarch,  and  again 
amused  Sarah  with  the  same  promise  of  a  son,  until  she 
laughed  until  she  was  scolded  for  it  by  the  Lord,  and 
then  denied  it ;  how  at  parting  w*ith  Abraham,  God  in- 
formed him  that  He  was  then  on  his  way  to  Sodom  and 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    4! 

Gomorrah  to  see  whether  matters  at  those  places  were 
altogether  as  the  "  cry  had  come  up  to  Him."  God  is 
not  only  represented  as  being  under  the  necessity  of 
washing  his  feet,  of  eating  food,  and  of  travelling  round 
the  country  to  see  whether  matters  have  been  rightly 
reported  to  him,  but  as  being  quite  as  companionable  as 
He  had  already  proved  himself  to  be  handy  and  useful 
in  the  Sartorial  line,  by  making  "  skin  coats "  for  Adam 
and  Eve ! 


Moses  himself,  with  his  Egyptian  learning,  was 
clearly  in  advance  of  all  such  crude  notions.  True,  he  is 
represented  as  a  man  who  talked  with  God  "  as  a  man 
talketh  to  his  friend."  It  is  also  said  of  him  that  he 
desired  God  to  exhibit  Himself  to  him,  and  that  God,  a 
little  more  exclusive  then  than  in  the  days  of  Adam  and 
Abraham,  informed  him  that  "  no  man  could  look  upon 
His  face  and  live,"  but  that  he  would  put  Moses  in  the 
"  cleft  of  rock "  and  there  cover  him  with  His  hand, 
while  He  passed  by,  and  that  He  would  take  off  his 
hand  in  passing,  and  permit  Moses  to  see  his  "  back 
parts."  If  Moses  ever  countenanced  such  reports,  it 
was  doubtlessly  with  a  view  to  their  effect  in  securing 
his  influence  with  the  superstitious  multitude.  The 
progressive  exclusiveness  here  shown  was  still  further 
developed  by  the  time  of  St.  John,  who  says  that  "  no 
man  has  seen  God  at  any  time" — either  back  parts  or 
front  parts.  Even  long  after  Moses,  however,  notions 
of  God's  occupation  and  powers  are  expressed  which  are 
quite  a-s  anthropomorphic  as  these.  We  are  informed 


42  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

(in  Judges)  that  the  Lord  was  aiding  Joshua  in  his  mil- 
itary operations,  and  that  He  was  enabled  to  drive  out 
the  inhabitants  of  the  hill  country,  "  but  could  not  drive 
out  the  inhabitants  of  the  valley  because  they  had  chariots 
of  iron  ; " — the  iron  chariots  proving  an  overmatch  for 
the  combined  efforts  of  God,  Joshua  and  the  "  chosen 
people."  All  this  is  quite  consistent  with  the  then  exist- 
ing stage  of  intelligence  and  development. 


Equally  crude  and  childish  notions  prevailed  with  re- 
gard to  the  character  and  morals  of  their  God.  These 
progressively  varied  with  the  age  and  with  the  individual, 
— always  corresponding  to  the  stage  of  intellectual  de- 
velopment and  the  influences  and  education  of  the  time 
and  person.  Men  who  looked  upon  God  as  an  image  of 
themselves,  or  rather  as  the  original  of  which  they 
were  the  image,  would,  of  necessity,  regard  Him  as  sub- 
ject to  the  desires,  feelings  and  motives  of  men.  His 
characteristics  would  necessarily  be  moulded  and  limited 
by  the  conceptive  powers  and  desires  of  His  worshippers. 
In  the  moral  character  of  the  God  of  the  early  Israel- 
ites, as  well  as  in  that  of  other  people's  Gods,  we  find  a 
reflex  of  the  worshipper, — more  or  less  improved  or  ideal- 
ized. The  God  of  the  Jews  was,  and  must  have  been, 
in  every  age,  what  the  Jew  then  considered  a  "  pattern 
man  "  with  extraordinary  or  supreme  capacities.  In  the 
earlier  and  more  savage  ages,  we  find  him  little  above  a 
human  Prince — with  the  cruelty,  vindictiveness,  favor- 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    43 

itism,  vanity,  self-laudation,  capriciousness,  and  love  of 
adulation  found  in  barbaric  kings  and  rulers.  He  was 
an  unscrupulous  ally  and  hot  friend,  and  a  remorseless 
and  cruel  foe.  His  motto  was  "an  eye  for  an  eye"  and 
"blood  for  blood;" — the  doctrine  at  the  bottom  of  the 
"  blood-feuds "  of  all  barbarians.  His  worshippers 
called  and  considered  Him  just,  and  even  merciful ;  but 
in  their  view  to  be  merciful  was  to  be  helpful  and  for- 
giving to  the  Jew  :  to  be  just  was  to  annihilate  the  en- 
emies of  the  Jew, — was  to  rob  other  people  of  their 
lands,  property,  homes  and  lives  for  the  benefit  of  His 
favorites, — was  to  exact  "the  uttermost  farthing,"  to 
"  reap  where  He  had  not  sown,"  and  to  punish  the  inno- 
cent children  for  the  sins  of  the  father,  to  the  tenth 
generation.  Amidst  the  smoke  of  incense  and  the  hal- 
lelujahs of  the  multitude  we  see  the  gleam  of  the  sacri- 
ficial knife  at  the  throat  of  thousands  of  innocent  victims ; 
we  hear  the  incessant  gurgling  of  the  hot  blood-stream 
from  the  altar,  and  witness  the  desolated  homes,  and  the 
rotting  carcasses  qf  the  innocent  cattle,  wives  and  children 
of  the  fathers  and  brothers  who  died  defending  them 
and  their  homes  from  the  aggressive  and  remorseless 
favorites  of  Jehovah.  Mighty  and  merciful  art  thou,  O 
Jehovah,  God  of  Sabaoth  !  -  Why  not  ?  To  them,  He 
seemed  both  good  and  just.  It  was  their  own  acts  they 
were  lauding — supposed  to  have  been  inspired  and  aided 
by  their  God.  Thus  it  has  been  with  all  peoples.  The 
ancient  Jewish  conception  of  God  is  even  less  offensive 
to  us  than  that  of  most  other  peoples  in  the  same  stage 
of  development.  As  they  had  but  one  God  to  represent 
that  which  was  represented  by  many  Gods  to  the  Poly- 
theist,  we  must  compare  him  to  the  whole  of  the  Poly- 


44  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

theistic  host  in  making  our  estimate ;  and,  in  doing  so, 
we  shall  find  the  Jewish  conception  compares  most  favor- 
ably with  that  of  others.  The  best  of  their  Gods  were 
very  human  and  imperfect.  The  God  of  the  Jew  has, 
through  Christianity,  become  largely  cosmopolitan,  and 
has  continued  to  improve  with  the  advance  of  the 
mental  and  moral  development  of  His  worshippers,  and 
has  been  largely  divested  of  his  partiality  and  favoritism. 
There  are  still  many  conceptions  in  relation  to  Jehovah, 
however,  which  are  very  shocking  and  savor  of  their 
barbaric  origin.  That  these  crude,  anthropomorphic 
conceptions  of  God  were  formed  in  analogy  to  human 
nature,  and  confirmed,  if  not  originated,  by  the  deifica- 
tion of  human  beings  is  sufficiently  clear.  How  far  the 
latter  custom  influenced  such  notions  it  may  be  difficult 
to  determine,  and  is  by  no  means  necessary  to  our 
purpose. 


RELATIONS    BETWEEN    GOD    AND    MAN. 

Turning  from  the  Biblical  conceptions  of  the  Deity, 
to  the  Biblical  conception  of  the  relations  between  God 
and  man,  we  shall  find  the  following  statement  of  them 
fairly  orthodox,  and  sufficiently  explicit  for  our  present 
purposes, — namely  : 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    45 

1.  That  God  made   man    out  of  the   "  dust  of  the 
earth,"  and    blew   breath   into    his    nostrils ;  that,  thus 
fashioned  and  vitalized,  he  was  "  a  little  lower  than  the 
angels  "  and  in  a  state  of  perfect  innocence  and  happi- 
ness, enjoying  every  blessing,  without  pain,  labor  or  care, 
and  obligated  and  restrained  by  only  a  single  duty  or 
command. 

2.  That  man,  seduced  by  the  "  Serpent,"  disobeyed 
this  command,  and  by  that  disobedience  incurred  the 
wrath  and  curses  of  his  offended  Creator,  and  the  penalty 
of  the  loss  of  his  innocence  and  happiness  and  of  his 
Paradisial  home,  and  entailed  the  curse  of  pain  and  death 
upon  all  animated  beings,  as  well  as  of  toil,  hereditary 
guilt,  depravity  and  condemnation  on  all  his  own  poster- 
ity, without  power  of  self-redemption. 

3.  That  this  divine  penalty  was  so  far  modified  as 
to  allow  man  to  escape  some  of  its  exactions  by  rigid 
obedience  to  the  divine  laws  and  by  continued  sacrifices 
and  blood-offerings  to  God  in  discharge  of  the  penalties 
due  for  their  transgressions :  and,  as  Christians  affirm, 
was  further  modified  by  the  promise  of  a  future  divine 
blood-offering  in  final  discharge  of  the  debts  of  Humanity. 


That  these  beliefs,  crude  as  they  may  now  appear, 
had  their  origin  in  the  nature  and  needs  of  man — that 
they  were  a  legitimate  product,  as  well  as  means  and 
process,  of  his  mental  and  moral  development,  is  not  to 


46  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

be  questioned.  To  future  enlightened  peoples,  the 
record  of  them  will  still  be  valuable  as  perhaps  the  most 
complete  and  consecutive  historical  presentation  of  the 
progressive  phases  of  religious  development  now  remain- 
ing. The  historical  narrative  of  customs,  facts  and 
beliefs  in  the  Bible,  in  this  connection,  as  well  as  the 
figuratively-expressed  legend  of  the  genesis  of  Nature 
and  of  the  early  condition,  habits  and  career  of  man, 
give  us  invaluable  information  as  to  primitive  beliefs  in 
these  regards,  and  valuable  hints  as  to  the  actual  and 
probable  order,  causes  and  significance  of  the  successive 
steps  in  religious  evolution  : — facts  which  we  are  still 
concerned  to  know.  We  cannot  be  otherwise  than 
anxious  to  know  how,  and  why,  those  ancient  notions 
were  formed  and  the  nature  and  measure  of  their  true 
human  value — to  know  how  men  arrived  at  the  belief 
that  they  had  fallen  from  a  state  of  primitive  purity  and 
of  bodily  immortality  and  happiness  ; — how  men,  even 
now,  obtain  their  notion  that  their  primal  ancestor  was, 
not  only  innocent,  deathless  and  happy,  but  was  the 
semi-divine  and  perfect  lord  of  the  Earth  and  an  ideally- 
perfect  denizen  of  an  ideally-perfect  paradise.  How 
did  men  arrive  at  the  idea  of  their  hopeless  indebt- 
edness to  God  ?  How  came  they  to  conceive  that 
God  could  be  paid  and  satisfied  by  blood,  and  by 
blood  alone?  In  short,  Why  this  Shylock  attitude 
of  an  omnipotent  and  uncontrolled  Creator  to  his  suffer- 
ing, pur-blind,  perishable  and  wholly  dependent  crea- 
tures ?  Certainly  such  relations  can  find  no  apology  in 
the  facts  as  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of.  an  enlight- 
ened reason  and  morality.  It  is  only  in  the  light  of 
evolution  that  such  notions  become  either  possible  or 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    4/ 

pardonable.  An  origin  of  extreme  ignorance  and  pro- 
gressive growth  can  alone  make  them  comprehensible 
and  tolerable.  Irrational  as  they  may  appear,  such 
notions  are  the  natural  outgrowth  of  the  conditions  and 
previous  beliefs  from  which  they  sprung.  The  errors 
from  which  they  arose  were  'rather  those  of  ignorance 
and  misconception  than  of  false  reasoning.  The  men 
who  formed  them,  constructed  them  from  the  then 
accredited  state  of  facts  and  the  traditional  accounts  and 
beliefs  of  their  time,  influenced  by  such  notions  of  causa- 
tion and  natural  phenomena  as  were  then  possible  to 
them,  and  by  such  feelings,  needs  and  aspirations  as  were 
natural  to  such  men. 

Remembering  all  this,  Let  us  endeavor  to  recover 
and  realize  the  intellectual  status  and  the  constructive 
mental  materials  of  the  men  who  successively  moulded  and 
modified  these  early  religious  beliefs, — now  supposed  to 
be  sacred  and  inspired  ;  and  to  recall  the  course  and 
causes  of  their  actual  reasonings  and  conclusions.  Re- 
curring to  their  own  individual  experiences  and  obser- 
vations of  human  nature,  they  found  it  overflowing  with 
animal  desires  and  impulses,  tending,  almost  resistlessly, 
to  selfishness,  violence,  and  all  manner  of  excess  and 
debauchery ;  and  that  these  errors  led  to  depravity,  per- 
sonal degeneracy,  disease,  misery  and  death — found  that, 
by  nature,  man  was  as  prone  to  sin  as  "  the  sparks  are  to 
fly  upwards,"  They  found  life  filled  with  disappoint- 
ments, discontent  and  suffering,  and  ever-recurring  want 
everywhere  demanding  renewed  toil : — a  life  where  every 
joy  has  its  correlative  sorrow,  and  which,  at  best,  was 
but  of  "  few  days  and  full  of  trouble."  They  did  not 


48  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

perceive  the  absolute  necessity  of  labor,  suffering  and 
death  to  the  divine  purposes  and  to  man's  physical  devel- 
opment and  ultimate  happiness.  The  question  ever 
recurred  to  them — Why  were  these  dread  and  inevitable 
penalties  attached  to  the  "  fever  called  living  ? "  They 
reflected  too  upon  the  distribution  of  happiness  and  con- 
tentment among  men, — upon  the  indolent,  careless  con- 
tent of  the  naked  Savage  and  the  ignorant  innocence 
and  joys  of  the  child,  and  compared  them  with  the 
anxious  toils,  sufferings  and  disappointments  of  the  aged 
and  the  intelligent ;  only  to  find  that,  everywhere,  con- 
tentment seemed  to  exist  in  the  inverse  ratio  of  knowl- 
edge, and  to  be  driven  to  conclude  that  "  where  ignor- 
ance is  bliss  'tis  foily  to  be  wise."  The  young  Savage, 
educated  to  civilization,  longed  to  return  to  the  condi- 
tion and  habits  of  his  old  Savage  state.  The  children  of 
the  Civilized,  when  bred  among  savages,  equally  refused 
to  accept  civilized  life.  The  Savage  State,  then,  had  the 
preference.  Sin  or  conscious  wrong,  as  well  as  misery 
and  discontent,  appeared  everywhere  to  increase  with 
the  increase  of  knowledge.  The  condition  of  innocence 
and  happiness  was  that  of  ignorance,  indolent  plenty, 
and  thoughtless,  careless  freedom.  What  more  natural 
and  inevitable  than  that' they  should  have  concluded  that 
sin,  sorrow,  toil  and  death  were  (speaking  in  their  figura- 
tive style)  the  results  of  eating  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of 
knowledge — of  that  knowledge  which  brings  conviction 
of  wrong-doing  and  the  consciousness  of  guilt,  and  which 
opens  up  new  objects  of  desire,  and  presents  new  rea- 
sons for  discontent  and  for  new  labors,  disappointments 
and  sufferings,  as  well  as  for  covetousness,  temptation 
and  sin  ?  When  they  turned  to  human  history  and  tra- 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    49 

dition  they  found  further  confirmation  of  their  views. 
They  remembered  their  childhood  as  their  own  "  golden 
age."  By  reason  of  their  decaying  powers  of  apprecia- 
tion and  enjoyment  they  could  no  longer  see  objects  and 
life  through  the  magnifying  powers  of  infancy  and  the 
prismatic  hues  of  hope  : — the  world  seemed  degenerating. 
What  seemed  to  be  thus  affirmed  by  their  own  experi- 
ence, they  remembered  to  have  heard  as  the  burden  of 
the  complaints  of  their  fathers  and  grandfathers  also. 
Clearly  the  "  good  old  times  "  were  in  the  past,  and  the 
all-golden-time  must  have  been  in  the  very  beginning. 
In  further  confirmation  of  this  ideal  reversal  of  the  course 
of  progress,  came  traditional  lore  and  the  mementoes 
and  relics  of  earlier  times,  affirming  that  men  grew  more 
indolent,  rude  and  ignorant  as  they  were  traced  back 
into  the  past.  Facts,  fancy  and  tradition,  therefore, 
pointed  back  to  a  primitive  age  of  simple  ignorance  and 
of  careless  indolence,  ease  and  content,  and'  of  that  inno- 
cence which  is  born  of  ignorance — an  innocence  which 
"  knows  no  wrong  " — pointed  back  to  an  age  when  the 
primal  man,  as  happy  and  untoiling  and  as  unconscious 
of  good  and  evil  as  the  child,  roamed  at  will  among  the 
forest-fruits  and  flowers  as  naked  as  his  own  ignorance 
and  innocence.  •  This  was  their  conception  of  man's 
primitive  state,  and  a  very  shrewd  one  it  was.  It  is  not 
the  paradisial  state  of  an  ideally-perfect  man  which  has 
been  since  modelled  by  our  race-pride,  but  it  is  the  true 
one,  and  the  one  actually  described  in  the  book  of  Gene- 
sis. The  book  of  Genesis  depicts  the  primal  condition 
of  man,  not  as  being  a  "  little  below  "  that  of  angels,  but 
as  being  barely  above  that  of  the  brutes.  It  places  man 
where  the  Scientific  theory  of  evolution  places  him, — 

4 


5<D  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

assigning  to  him  an  undeveloped  and  ignorant  nature 
and  an  animal  condition.  It  makes  him  a  wild-man — a 
naked  savage,  without  a  single  art  or  implement,  and 
without  social,  marital  or  family  relations.  Adam  is  in- 
troduced to  us  in  the  lowest  state  and  condition  that 
could  be  recognized  as  human.  He  is  without  a  lan- 
guage, and  utterly  ignorant  of  good  and  evil.  He  is 
stark-naked,  unwashed,  soapless,  unshorn,  uncombed, 
unsheltered,  rambling  alone  through  the  uncultivated 
forest  of  Eden  among  the  other  animals,  and,  like  them, 
living  without  fire  and  feeding  upon  the  wild  fruits 
which  Nature  furnished! 

-  The  first  step  in  advance  is  represented  as  being  that 
of  entering  into  sexual  relations — the  male,  and  female 
man  mate.  Adam's  wife,  however,  is  still  as  naked  and 
as  shameless  and  unkempt  as  himself,  and  each  follows 
the  dictates  and  promptings  of  Nature,  unconscious  of 
nakedness,  and  incapable  of  immodesty  or  shame.  The 
next  step  in  progress  alters  this.  Very  naturally,  the 
woman  is  made  the  first  to  become  conscious  of  her 
nudity  and  of  its  impropriety,  and  is  represented  as  set- 
ting to  work  to  improve  her  condition  by  sewing  her 
apron  of  leaves,  and  as  persuading  Adam  into  following 
her  example.  This  sense  of  impropriety  and  shame  was 
the  first  human  knowledge  or  conception  of  right  and 
wrong,  and  also  the  first  incentive  to  invention  and  labor 

— the  first  fruits  of  the  "tree  of  knowledge  of  good  and 
evil."  Thus  were  initiated  man's  ever-increasing  wants 
and  labors,  both  of  body  and  brain,  to  meet  the  demands 
of  his  ever-heightening  conceptions  and  ever-growing 
intelligence. 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    51 

We  soon  find  man  dissatisfied  with  his  fig-leaf  cloth- 
ing and  his  wild  vegetable  food  ;  find  him  clothed  in 
skins  ;  indicating  that  he  had  passed  from  th£  wild  stage 
to  the  hunter  stage.  We  also  find  him  represented  as 
emerging  from  the  wild  forest  of  Eden,  entering  upon 
agricultural  pursuits,  and  winning  his  bread  by  the  sweat 
of  his  brow.  We  very  properly  find  his  developed  pride 
and  his  sense  of  shame  and  disgust  at  his  old,  naked, 
animal  life  represented  as  standing,  like  a  "  flaming 
sword  "  between  him  and  his  old  forest  haunts,  guarding 
against  his  return  to  the  old,  indolent,  wild  life. 

Making  proper  allowance  for  the  fact  that  the  authors 
of  Genesis,  like  all  men  of  like  development,  believed 
that  all  their  new  thoughts,  visions  and  dreams  were  in- 
spired or  communicated  by  Gods  or  Spirits,  and  that 
they  habitually  represented  such  supposed  communi- 
cations as  commands  or  actual  declarations  by  such 
spiritual  beings,  and  that  their  modes  of  thought  were 
confined  to  the  Concrete,  and  were  represented  symbol- 
ically and  figuratively, — making  these  allowances,  we 
find  the  conception  of  the  authors  of  Genesis,  formed 
from  the  facts  as  they  were  then  known  and  understood, 
to  correspond  substantially  and  in  a  striking  manner  with 
the  conclusions  of  modern  thought, — namely,  that  Man 
progressively  emerged  from  a  wild,  ignorant  and  savage 
state,  and  that  he  was  driven  towards  civilized  life  and 
into  the  wants,  cares,  labors  and  dissatisfaction  which 
such  progress  required  and  involved,  by  a  sense  of  the 
imperfection  of  his  condition  and  an  increasing  knowl- 
edge of  "  good  and  evil."  That  their  views  should  havte 
been  presented  in  an  allegorical,  tropical  or  concrete 


52  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

form  was  to  have  been  expected,  not  only  from  their 
known  habits,  but  as  a  necessity  of  their  stage  of  devel- 
opment. Swch  was  the  natural  mode  of  thought  and 
expression  of  the  men  of  their  race  and  time.  What 
was  supposed  to  have  been  suggested  to,  or  put  into, 
their  minds  by  spiritual  agencies,  they  represented  as 
being  shown  or  said  to  them  by  the  supposed  inspirers 
of  their  thoughts,  dreams  or  visions.  Thus  we  have 
God,  the  Creator,  and  the  subtle  Serpent  talking  freely 
with  man  ; — wisdom  being  here  expressed  by  its  usual 
and  well-known  symbol  of  the  serpent ;  while  the  knowl- 
edge of  good  and  evil  figuratively  assumes  the  form  of 
the  "fruit  of  the' tree  of  knowledge  of  good  and  evil." 


But, Why  did  men  subsequently  come  to  construe  this 
old  expression  of  by-gone  thought  in  a  manner  so  ad- 
verse to  its  real  meaning,  and  even  to  its  letter,  and  in  a 
manner  which  reflected  so  unfavorably  upon  the  veracity 
and  common  sense  of  its  authors  ?  How  came  they  to 
convert  these  very  creditable  speculations  upon  the 
primitive  history  of  man  and  the  origin  of  good  and 
evil,  labor  and  suffering,  sin  and  death,  into  an  ideal  ab- 
surdity, unsupported  by  a  single  reason  or  fact  ?  Sev- 
eral causes  have  conspired  to  producp  this  perversion. 
In  the  first  place,  as  we  have  seen,  there  is  a  natural 
tendency  to  magnify  and  idealize  the  Past.  To  the 
causes  already  assigned  for  this  may  be  added  that  of 
pride  of  race  and  ancestry.  This  feeling  has  largely 


ORIGIN   AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    $3 

aided  in  coloring — nay,  of  controlling — our  renderings  of 
the  Scriptural  account  of  the  genesis  of  the  Race. 
Secondly :  piety  and  reverence  for  the  Creator  have  im- 
pelled men  to  assume  the  perfections  of  His  creations, 
and  successive  generations  have  moulded  the  primitive 
account,  as  far  as  possible,  to  suit  their  own  growing  ideal 
conceptions  of  perfection,  and  not  those  of  the  authors  of 
Genesis.  Thirdly :  time,  reverence  for  the  venerable, 
and  the  peculiar  modes  of  thought  and  expression  of  the 
narrative  itself,  have  rendered  the  book  sacred,  and  en- 
gendered a  belief  in  its  inspiration, — a  belief  which  its 
authors  never  entertained  further  than  their  belief  in 
the  inspiration  of  all  men's  new  thoughts  and  dreams. 
This  sacredness  of  the  account  or  narrative  has  aided  in 
securing  it  both  a  partially  literal  interpretation  and  an 
exemption  from  rational  criticism.  Fourthly  :  more  ad- 
vanced generations  have  neither  comprehended  the  style, 
nor  the  symbols,  of  the  authors,  and  have  taken  the  Ser- 
pent and  the  tree  of  knowledge  and  its  fruit  as  actual 
entities,  and  the  supposed  talking  of  God  and  the  Ser- 
pent as  actual,  visible  and  audible  intercourse.  From 
these  and  other  causes,  men  have  grown  into  most  sin- 
gular beliefs  in  reference  to  the  state  of  Adam  and  Eve 
— beliefs  compounded  of  their  own  ideals  and  the  literal 
renderings  of  Genesis,  yet  wholly  unlike  either. 


The  real  difference  between  those  ancient  Thinkers 
and  our  present  ones  is  not  so  much  in  the  substantial 
conclusions  they  reached  as  to  the  primitive  condition 


54  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

of  man,  or  even  as  to  the  cause  and  order  of  his  progress, 
as  it  is  in  their  notions  as  to  what  constitutes  the  highest 
and  most  desirable  state  of  human  existence,  and  as  to 
the  nature  and  character  of  God  and  his  relations  to 
man,  and  as  to  origin  of  suffering,  evil  and  mortality. 
What  those  early  Thinkers  treat  as  a  fa!!,  modern  ones 
would  regard  as  a  progress.  What  they  regarded  as  evil, 
we  regard  as  the  highest  earthly  good.  Their  ideal  state 
— that  of  absolute  nakedness  and  ignorance — constitutes 
the  very  sum  of  our  pity  and  disgust.  We  think  that  to 
fall  to  a  lower  state,  was  to  reach  that  of  the  brute. 
They  regarded  moral  knowledge  and  modesty  as  an 
enemy  to  human  happiness  and  innocence,  as  things  pro- 
scribed and  forbidden  by  God,  and  as  the  one  source  of  sin, 
evil  and  death ;  we  regard  them  as  our  most  desirable 
distinctions.  They  regarded  labor,  pain  and  death  as  due 
to  man's  moral  conduct  and  as  a  curse.  We,  on  the 
contrary,  regard  them  as  the  necessary  consequences  of 
our  original  nature  and  the  conditions  of  existence,  and 
as  the  necessary  means  of  human  development.  These 
direct  and  complete  mental  antagonisms  have  produced 
other  singular,  but  not  wholly  incongruous  results.  In 
assigning  to  the  good  and  evil  powers  their  respective 
roles  in  the  drama  of  the  "  fall,"  they  have  given  them 
the  precise  reverse  ones  to  those  which  we  should  now 
assign  them.  God  is  represented  as  the  enemy  of  man's 
progress  and  the  foe  of  human  knowledge — of  that 
knowledge  which  not  only  we,  but  both  God  and  the 
Serpent,  regard  as  the  most  godlike  quality.  The  Ser- 
pent advises  man  to  acquire  that  godlike  quality,  or 
power,  and  assures  him,  truly,  that  he  shall  not  die  the 
day  he  eats  of  the  forbidden  fruit,  but  would  know  good 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    55 

from  evil  like  the  Gods  ;  while  God  is  represented  as 
falsely  declaring  that  on  the  day  he  should  eat  thereof  he 
should  surely  die.  The  facts  turn  out  as  the  Serpent  had 
declared,  and  God,  forgetting  or  disregarding  his  own 
position  and  declarations,  is  made  to  confirm  the  Serpent 
by  saying,  "  Behold  the  man  is  become  as  one  of  us,  to 
know  good  from  evil,"  as  well  as  by  making  him  skin 
garments  as  an  improvement  on  his  fig  leaves,  and  per- 
mitting him  to  continue  to  live  near  a  thousand  years 
thereafter  and  people  the  Earth,  and  by  driving  him  forth 
into  conditions  and  modes  of  life  which  would  necessa- 
rily compel  him  to  still  higher  knowledge.  Such  notions 
of  God  and  knowledge  were  certainly  very  crude — at 
least  very  unlike  those  we  should  now  form.  God  would 
hardly  be  represented  now  as  the  enemy  of  human 
knowledge  and  progress,  nor"  as  the  friend  of  ignorance 
and  savageism,  nor  as  fearing  that  man  would  become 
godlike.  Upon  these  very  views,  however,  are  based 
the  conception  of  man's  "  fall "  and  degradation,  with 
all  its  attendant  doctrines — conceptions  and  doctrines 
which  have  profoundly  influenced  the  development  and 
destiny  of  Humanity.  And,  while  it  is  easy  to  compre- 
hend how  such  notions  have  arisen,  it  is  still  easier  to 
demonstrate,  that  they  are  the  precise  reverse  of  the 
actual  facts  ; — that  man's  history  exhibits  a  progress  and 
not  a  "fall"  (unless  it  were  a  fall  upwards — since  to  fall 
lower  was  to  cease  to  be  human)  ;  and  that  knowledge 
and  moral  insight  are  desirable,  not  detestable,  achieve- 
ments. What  they  call  a  fall,  is  a  progress  and  a  blessing. 
And  yet,  without  this  fall  and  degradation  of  man,  What 
is  left  of  Christianity  ?  It  underlies  the  entire  system 
— its  plan  of  redemption  and  everything. 


56  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

The    doctrine    of    man's  'indebtedness    to    God  for 
penalties   for  broken   laws,  is    iipw   inextricably  woven 
into   the   web    of   faith   based    upon    the    doctrine    of 
his  fall  and  degradation  ;    although  it  would  seem  to 
be  of  later  growth.     Certainly,  savages  have  no  notion 
of  such  an    indebtedness,  nor  of  any  relation  between 
God   and   man   from  which  it  could    arise.     What   we 
denominate  their   "  worship "   is  not   a  proceeding  for 
paying  off  debts    or    discharging  obligations  to    their 
fetiches  or   Gods,   but    an  act  of    bribery  or   concilia- 
tion— an  effort  to  placate  inimical  spirits  or  win   the 
favor  of  bad  ones   by  agreeable  offerings  or  presents. 
The  addition  of  a  sense  of  obligation  to  the  Deities  and 
of  sacrificial  offerings  in  payment  or  discharge  of  our 
indebtedness  for  broken   obligations,  only  occurs   after 
the  establishment  of  civil  governments  and  their  exac- 
tion of  tributes  and  penalties.     It  is  in  analogy  to  the 
relation  between  subject  and  ruler  and  to  the  uniform 
custom   of    rulers    in    converting   crimes    and   offences 
against  their  laws  and  sovereignty  into  fines  and  pecu- 
niary penalties,  that  the  religious  idea  and  custom  arises. 
The  needs  and  greed  of  princes  have  made  them  early 
adopt  this  mode  of  punishment  and  exaction,   and  the 
necessities  and  inclinations  of  priests  have  not  rendered 
them  slow  to  follow  their  example.     So  soon  as  pretended 
divine  laws  were  resorted  to,  and  a  regular  priesthood 
was  established,  these  exactions  of  tributes  and  penal- 
ties from  subject  worshippers,  for  the  support  of  the 
priests,  of  the  temple  and  of  the  altar,  became  inevitable; 
and  the  idea  of  obligation  and  indebtedness  would  ne- 
cessarily be  superimposed  upon  the  old  idea  of  placatory 
and  prohibitory  free-offerings  and  bribes  to  the  Gods. 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    57 

This  process  has  been  greatly  facilitated,  if  not  initiated, 
by  the  apotheosis  of  great  rulers  and  law-givers.  When 
such  rulers  were  deified  by  their  ignorant  subjects,  to 
make  the  latter  believe  in  a  continuance  of  their  ob- 
ligations to  their  adored  ruler  and  induce  them  to  pay 
tribute  or  taxes  and  penalties  to  his  earthly  temple  or 
altar  was  an  easy  matter.  And  subsequent  rulers  and 
priests  were  alike  interested  in  permanently  establishing 
these  divine  relations,  laws  and  obligations  for  the  pur- 
poses of  restraint,  power  and  profit.  Thus  grew  up  the 
conception  of  God  being  a  heavenly  or  divine  potentate 
or  King,  and  of  man's  obligations  to  Him,  and  of  his  in- 
debtedness to  Him  for  penalties  for  broken  laws — the 
idea  of  debtor  and  creditor,  and  of  the  necessity  of  pay- 
ment to  the  "  last  farthing  "  to  prevent  a  vindictive  phys- 
ical or  personal  punishment.  To  tell  why  sensible 
people  still  continue  to  base  their  religious  beliefs  and 
practices  upon  this  earth-born  and  grossly  anthropomor- 
phic conception  of  God — one  so  childishly  inappropriate 
and  so  derogatory  to  His  nature  and  character — would 
be  to  repeat  a  story  as  old  as  man,  and  one  wjiich,  to 
those  who  know  man's  nature  and  history,  or  who  under- 
stand the  methods  9f  natural  evolution,  needs  no  rep- 
etition or  explanation.  A  notion  or  custom,  once  es- 
tablished, has  an  indefinite  lease  of  life.  However  ab- 
surd or  however  modified  and  re-appropriated,  it  may 
continue  to  float  on  through  the  Ages  long  after  its 
origin  and  primary  significance  has  been  forgotten,  and 
after  it  has  ceased  to  find  a  place  in  the  reason  of  its 
acceptors. 


58  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

But  now  comes  the  further  question — Why  should 
God  exact  the  payment  of  man's  penalties  and  debts  in 
blood1?  Why  should  this  senseless,  cruel,  Shylock  cur- 
rency have  been  regarded  as  the  only  equivalent  for 
what  man  is  supposed  to  owe  to  Heaven's  exchequer  ? 
Why  are  we  told  that, — "  without  the  shedding  of  blood 
there  is  no  remission  of  sin  ? "  Why  should  the  good 
Father  of  Life  desire,  or  be  gratified  with,  the  blood  and 
vitals  of  His  poor,  suffering  creatures  ?  Why  should  the 
bloo'd  of  one,  innocent  creature,  be  received  in  satisfaction 
of  the  penalties  due  from  another,  guilty  creature,  or  in 
any  manner  atone  for  its  guilt  or  crimes  ?  Why  was  the 
innocent  and  unstained  sacrifice  of  Cain,  wholly  rejected 
while  the  reeking  blood-offering  from  the  innocent, 
slaughtered  lamb  of  Abel  was  accepted  ?  How  could, 
or  Why  should,  this  life-blood  of  innocence  have  any 
possible  tendency  to  gratify  or  compensate  the  Infinite 
God,  or  to  punish  Abel,  or  to  atone  for  his  sins  ?  Why 
is  it,  that  the  sacrifice  was,  not  only  of  the  blood  of  one 
innocent  creature  for  the  offences  or  debts  of  another, 
but  that  the  sacrificed  creature  must  be  both  innocent 
and  perfect — without  "  spot  or  blemish  ?  "  This  divine 
craving  for  blood  and  the  sacrifice  of  the  innocent  for  the 
deeds  and  debts  of  the  guilty,  is  ever  the  most  revolting 
and  incomprehensible  of  mysteries.  The  idea  of  even  a 
human  Despot  demanding  blood  for  the  sake  of  blood — 
as  a  compensation,  in  itself,  for  his  claims  against  the 
guilty — and  not  as  a  punishment  inflicted  on  the  guilty, 
but  expressly  required  to  be  drawn  from  the  pure  and  in- 
nocent, would  be  too  monstrous  for  belief.  Such  an  idea 
could  never  have  originated  with  our  present  conceptions 
of  Deity.  With  our  views,  a  being  who  would  demand 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    59 

that  his  altars  should  be  kept  streaming,  from  age  to  age, 
with  the  hot  life-blood  of  innocent  and  agonized  men, 
women,  children  and  dumb  brutes  to  pay  the  debts  of 
their  guilty  slayers,  would  not  be  a  conceivable  being, 
much  less  a  God. 

Such  notions,  however,  have  had  a  legitimate  origin 
and  normal  growth,  however  repugnant  they  may  now  ap- 
pear to  the  more  enlightened  and  developed  intelligence 
of  our  times.  And  when  we  trace  that  origin  and  growth, 
and  view  them  as  a  continuous  development  or  meta- 
morphosis of  old  beliefs,  our  astonishment  at  their  exist- 
ence ceases.  We  shall  find  the  origin  and  the  first  step 
in  the  explanation  of  these  notions  in  the  early  fetich- 
istic  ages.  There  we  have  already  seen  man  endeavoring 
to  conciliate  or  propitiate  the  dreaded  invisible  spirits  by 
presents  or  offerings  of  vegetable  food — food  consisting  of 
the  supposed  hidden  life  in  the  grain,  fruits  and  esculents 
thus  offered  them.  We  find  in  Genesis  an  allegorical 
account  of  the  fact  of  the  transition  from  these  vegetable 
sacrifices  or  offerings  to  the  offerings  of  blood.  We  find 
the  elder  brother,  Cain,  still  offering,  like  a  true  fetichist, 
the  products  of  the  soil ;  only,  however,  to  be  rejected  ; 
while  the  younger  brother,  Abel,  having  adopted  the  in- 
coming notion,  offers  the  acceptable  sacrifice.  As  usual, 
we  find  the  new  innovation  opposed,  and  the  first  re- 
former slain.  Men  of  the  old  fetichistic  phase  of  devel- 
opment had  grown  into  certain  new  beliefs  and  discarded 
their  old  ones  by  the  time  they  had  reached  the  stage  rep- 
resented by  Abel.  They  had  formed  more  exalted 
notions  of  divine  and  Spiritual  beings— .-had  come  to  re- 
gard them  as  having  superior  and  immortal  natures,  and 


6O  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

had  discarded  the  old  childish  notion  that  all  things 
possessed  a  hidden  conscious  life  or  spirit,  and  had  come 
to  confine  the  possession  of  a  spirit  to  the  animal  king- 
dom. That  they  still  believed  that  all  animals  possessed 
them  is  shown  in  the  book  of  Ecclesiasticus  by  the  query 
— "  Who  knoweth  the  soul  of  man  that  it  goeth  up  or 
the  soul  of  the  beast  that  it  goeth  down  ?  " 

But,  while  the  Abelites  had  risen  to  a  conception 
of  Gods  of  an  immortal  nature,  their  conception  did  not 
rise  to  the  height  of  freeing  their  Gods  from  the  desire  of 
eating  and  drinking  or  from  requiring  the  old  humoring 
and  propitiation.  They  still  required  presents  and  sup- 
plications to  them.  But  How  could  they  offer  to  a  spirit 
visible  food  which  they  no  longer  believed  to  contain 
the  invisible  food  of  Gods  or  Spirits  ?  They  knew  they 
did  not  eat  the  visible  parts  of  their  offerings,  for  no 
part  of  that  ever  disappeared  ;  and  the  invisible  vital  or 
spiritual  part  they  no  longer  regarded  vegetables  as  pos- 
sessing. To  offer  vegetables  to  a  God,  therefore,  became 
a  mockery.  The  abandonment  of  the  old  fetichistic  no- 
tion of  the  existence  of  a  hidden  spirit  in  all  things  and 
confining  such  existences  to  animals,  necessarily  confined 
divine  offerings,  as  food,  to  the  animal  kingdom,  although 
the  senses  of  their  Gods  might  still  be  regaled  by  the 
real  but  invisible  odors  from  sweet-savored  herbs  or 
spices,  and  by  the  smoke  of  burning  sacrifices  and  the 
sight  of  flowers.  But  these  changes  were  not  all  that 
had  occurred.  Men  had  come  to  believe  that  the  life, 
anima  or  soul  of  the  animal  resides  in  the  blood,  or  at 
most  in  the  blood  and  vitals.  This  transition  and  be- 
lief has  been  general  at  a  certain  stage  of  development, 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    6l 

as  clearly  appears  both  from  history  and  scripture.  In 
the  ninth  chapter  of  Genesis  we  are  told,  that  God  ex- 
pressly forbids  man  to  eat  blood,  because,  it  is  the  life  of 
the  animal  (which  was  exclusively  appropriated  by  God). 
This  belief,  coupled  with  the  foregoing  beliefs,  rendered 
animal  and  human  sacrifices  inevitable.  And,  accord- 
ingly, we  find  they  everywhere  prevailed  at  the  appropriate 
stage  of  beliefs  : — the  Greek,  the  Roman,  the  Aztec  and 
the  Jew,  alike,  making  their  altars  crimson  with  blood 
and  odorous  with  spices  and  burning  vitals,  in  order  to 
feast  and  regale  their  Gods  ;  never  doubting  that  these 
were  palatable  viands  to  their  Gods  and  a  "  sweet  savor  " 
in  their  nostrils.  Speaking  of  these  divine  offerings, 
Sir  John  Lubbock  says  :  "  They  are,  indeed,  a  stage 
through  which,  in  any  natural  process  of  development, 
religion  must  pass.  At  first  it  is  supposed  that  the 
spirits  actually  eat  the  food  offered  them.  Soon,  however, 
it  would  be  observed  that  animals  sacrificed  didnot  dis- 
appear ;  and  the  natural  explanation  would  be  that  the 
spirit  ate  the  spiritual  part  of  the  victim,  leaving  the 
grosser  portion  for  his  devout  worshipper." 

All  this  at  once  lays  bare  the  secret  of  blood- offerings, 
and  explains  the  apparently  inexplicable  mystery  of  the 
myth  of  Cain  and  Abel.  And  as  the  Abelites  in  aban- 
doning the  old  fetichistic  mode  of  feeding  their  Gods, 
still  retained  the  fetichistic  idea  of  feeding  them,  so  sub- 
sequent worshippers,  who  had  abandoned  the  idea  of 
feeding  them  altogether,  did  not  abandon  or  cease  to 
pursue  the  old  forms  and  methods  of  propitiating  God  by 
sacrifices  and  blood -offerings,  but  conformed  their  new 
notion  of  their  indebtedness  to  God  for  broken  laws,  to 


62  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

the  old  method  of  feeding  and  propitiating  him,  and  thus 
literally  paid  off  God's  claims  in  innocent  blood.  We 
can  understand  the  crude,  but  obsolete  notions  of  the 
Fetichists  or  Cainites  and  of  the  still  less  fetichistic 
Abelites,  from  their  respective  standpoints,  and  can 
understand  why  the  Abelites  should  have  offered  as  food 
to  their  God  the  most  perfect  and  innocent  of  their  ani- 
mals. It  was  perfectly  natural  and  appropriate,  with 
their  views  and  purposes.  It  was  proper  to  regale  his 
God  on  the  most  perfect  and  pure  food  and  of  a  kind 
which  was  suitable  to  His  nature.  It  is  only  after  the 
old  custom  and  rite  is  continued  for  a  wholly  different 
purpose,  and  with  wholly  different  views,  that  the  incon- 
gruity, cruelty  and  irrationality  of  the  conception  and 
procedure  becomes  manifest.  The  simple  fact  is,  that 
they  have  retained,  under  the  pressure  of  a  supposed 
divine  command,  these  ancient  rites  and  customs  and 
adapted  them  to  their  own  subsequent  notions,  long  after 
they  had  ceased  to  comprehend  the  real  reasons  for  their 
original  adoption.  Such  gross  incongruities  and  absur- 
dities must  always  occur  where  progressive  peoples  are 
compelled  to  endeavor  to  conform  their  new  and  growing 
ideas  and  aspirations  to  ancient  sacred  laws  and  rites 
founded  upon  already  abandoned  and  forgotten  notions. 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    63 

SAVIOUR-IDEA. 

,  'fa.\ 

When  men  have  come  to  regard  themselves  as  the 
subjects  of  a  Divine  Ruler  or  King  to  whom  they  are  in- 
debted for  the  penalties  due  for  inherited  guilt  and  for 
broken  laws  and  obligations,  and  to  regard  themselves 
as  degenerate  and  hopelessly  insolvent  and  degenerating, 
and  as  under  the  ban  of  divine  wrath  for  their  short- 
comings and  misdoings,  they  naturally  turn,  in  their  im- 
potence, to  the  idea  of  a  Saviour.  The  growing  necessi- 
ties of  their  development,  and  their  germinating  ideals 
compel  them  to  adopt  and  recognize  divine  laws  and 
obligations  whose  rigorous  penalties  and  exactions  will 
coerce  their  low  and  ungovernable  natures  into  subjection 
and  restraint : — the  rigor  of  the  restraints  and  penalties 
being  determined  by  the  requirements  of  their  own  bru- 
tality and  obstinacy.  They  find  that,  in  practice,  these 
rigorous  obligations  cannot  be  met,  and  that  their  delin- 
quencies are  ever  accumulating  on  them.  The  contem- 
plation of  their  supposed  degeneracy  and  impotent  re- 
trogression and  the  sickening  contrast  between  what 
they  might  be  and  ought  to  be  and  what  they  are — be- 
tween ideal  life  and  real  life  compels  them  to  chafe  and 
brood  over  their  hopeless  frailty,  depravity  and  impotence, 
and  the  burden  of  their  supposed  debts  for  transgressions 
becomes  intolerable.  Their  most  sanguine  and  earnest 
efforts  to  redeem  themselves  or  others  are  rewarded 
with  the  most  disheartening  results.  They  seem  scarcely 
to  retard  man's  growing  degeneracy,  much  less  elevate 
him  to  their  ideal  standard.  Redden  their  altars  as  they 
might  with  offerings  of  blood,  their  moral  bankruptcy 
appeared  to  become  ever  more  hopelessly  irretrievable. 


64  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

Do  what  they  might,  the  Race  seemed  to  be  hopelessly 
fallen  and  lost,  while  their  own  lives  were  hurrying  on, 
like  fleeting  phantoms,  towards  death  and  night !  An 
endless  longing  for  the  Better  and  Higher  was  accom- 
panied by  a  despairing  sense  of  impotence.  They 
yearned  for  an  ideal  immortality,  and  were  met  by  the 
hateful,  rotting  grave,  and  by  a  voiceless  and  rayless 
Beyond.  The  aid  of  their  priestly  agents  and  earthly 
intercessors  was  as  impotent  to  save  or  redeem  them  as 
their  own  efforts,  prayers  and  sacrifices.  Like  the  sick 
and  enfeebled  Caesar,  succumbing  to  the  waves  of  the 
Tiber,  they  were  ready  to  cry — "  Help,  Cassius,  or  I 
sink," — "  Save,  or  I  perish  ! " 


The  manifestations  of  Nature  furnished  the  sugges- 
tions and  analogies  which  gave  direction  and  shape  to 
those  human  hopes  and  beliefs  which  were  so  necessary 
to  relieve  man  from  the  intolerable  burden  of  his  sense 
of  obligation  and  indebtedness  and  of  personal  imper- 
fection and  impotence — so  necessary  to  prevent  indiffer- 
ence and  despair  and  reinspire  hope  and  effort.  The 
life-giving  and  life-restoring  powers  of  Nature  were  ob- 
served to  be  primarily  dependent  upon  the  light  and  heat 
emanating  from  the  Sun.  These  appeared  to  descend 
upon  the  earth  and  impregnate  it,  and  to  annually  regen- 
erate it  and  clothe  it  with  new  life.  At  the  Sun's 
annual  departure  the  Earth  put  on  sack  cloth  and  ashes, 
or  draped  herself  in  mourning :  at  its  return  she  again 
decked  herself  as  a  bride,  and  beneath  the  bright  smiles 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    65 

t  -ji 

and  warm  embraces  of  her  returning  Lord  she  again 
teemed  with  joyous  life.  It  is  to  the  various  sun-myths 
of  the  different  races,  based  upon  the  phenomena  of 
light,  heat  and  the  returning  seasons  and  earthly  resto- 
rations, that  we  must  look  for  the  suggestion  and  expla- 
nation of  this  Saviour-idea.  The  mental  differences  be- 
tween the  authors  of  the  various  myths  and  their  influence 
upon  each  other,  coupled  with  other  causes,  produced 
corresponding  differences  and  combinations  in  the  con- 
ceptions and  mythic  representations  of  the  various  ages 
and  races ;  but  everywhere,  from  Old  Mexico  to  older 
India,  men  have  founded  their  ideas  and  hopes  of  a  divine 
Saviour,  or  an  Intermediary  between  Earth  and  Heaven, 
upon  the  analogies  furnished  by  the  Sun  and  its  revivi- 
fying and  restorative  agencies  and  influences.  Whether 
the  myths  personifying  these  powers  and  agencies  and 
embodying  the  hopes  and  beliefs  they  inspired,  would  be 
complete  or  fragmentary — whether  they  would  refer 
generally  to  the  Sun  and  its  emanations  and  influences 
or  would  specifically  distinguish  them  or  confound  and 
confuse  them,  would  depend  upon  many  considerations  ; 
but  they  all  had  their  source  in  the  same  human  needs 
and  aspirations  and  took  their  general  features  from  the 
same  natural  objects  and  analogies,  whether  the  chief 
hero  and  hope  was  called  Apollo  or  Bachus,  Balder  or 
Hercules,  Quetzalcoatt  or  Chrishna.  The  burden  of  the 
story  is  always  the  triumph  of  the  life-giving  and  regen- 
erating over  the  life-destroying  and  degrading,  influences 
of  Nature,  through  means  of  the  Sun  or  Supreme  Lord 
of  Heaven  or  some  divine  Son,  Logos,  or  emanations 
from  him.  As  the  decaying  life  of  the  vegetable  world 
was  renewed  by  the  presence  of  the  vernal  sun  and  the 

5 


66  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

on-falling  of  its  emanations  of  light  and  heat,  so  many, 
or  most,  men  hoped  and  reasoned  that  the  Divine  Spirit 
of  God  would  egender,  in  some  of  Earth's  daughters,  a 
son  and  saviour  who  should  be  the  light  and  life  of  Hu- 
manity,— and  should  overcome  death  and  the  grave  as 
the  Sun  did  its  wintry  death,  and  become  the  Redeemer 
of  the  Race  and  its  Intercessor  with  God. 


These  divine  benefactors  or  Saviours  are  represented 
as  having  brought,  or  as  expected  to  bring,  light,  healing, 
and  blessings  to  man,  here  or  hereafter.  They  are  rep- 
resented as  the  medium  of  man's  creation  and  preser- 
vation, as  toiling  or  suffering  for  him,  as  bearing  his 
burdens  and  sorrows,  as  overcoming  death  and  the  de- 
structive forces  of  Nature,  and  sometimes  as  being  the 
seed  or  source  of  life  and  the  offspring  of  an  earthly  vir- 
gin under  the  fructifying  influence  of  the  divine  efful- 
gence ;  thus  personifying  and  representing  the  return  of 
the  life-giving  Sun  from  its  winter  solstice  and  its  re- 
entry inttf  the  zodiacal  sign  of  the  Virgin,  and  its  engen- 
dering new  life  in  the  virgin  earth,  and  its  passing 
through  its  preappointed  course  and  labors  of  vitalizing 
and  regenerating  the  vegetable  world,  and  its  final  pas- 
sage into  the  death  of  winter,  only  to  return  again  with 
new  power  and  glory. 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    6/ 

From  such  developing  ideals  and  aspirations,  such 
sense  of  obligation  and  indebtedness  to  God,  and  such 
convictions  of  the  degeneracy  and  impotence  of  man, 
have  men  derived  their  belief  in  the  need  of  a  divine  In- 
termediator and  Redeemer ;  and  from  such  analogies  in 
natural  phenomena  have  they  won  the  conception  and 
hope  of  such  a  divine  salvation.  Such  beliefs  are  the 
natural  outgrowths  of  a  dawning,  original  civilization. 
No  Savage  can  conceive  them.  No  Rationalist  needs 
them.  The  Evolutionist  already  perceives  that  the  phe- 
nomena originating  this  idea  of  man's  fall  and  degen- 
eracy and  of  the  necessity  of  a  Saviour,  are,  themselves, 
but  a  part  of  the  very  means  and  processes  by  which 
man  is  already  being  self-developed,  elevated  and  saved 
without  supernatural  intervention  or  other  causes  than 
the  inherent  and  developing  powers  and  proclivities  of 
his  own  nature  acting  under  the  pressure  and  induce- 
ments furnished  by  the  conditions  of  his  existence  ;  that, 
instead  of  man's  needing  to  be  saved  from  the  knowledge 
of  evil  and  from  labor,  dissatisfaction,  suffering  and 
death,  these  supposed  curses  are  his  blessings,  and  con- 
stitute the  necessary  means  and  method  of  saving,  purify- 
ing and  elevating  him  here  and  hereafter  ;  that,  instead  of 
man  being  a  bankrupt  debtor  to  his  Creator,  the  Divine 
All-Father  is  forever  exercising  His  beneficence  and 
discharging  His  own  obligation  to  His  helpless  children 
by  providing  for  their  progressive  physical  and  psychical 
development  and  their  continued  growth  in  intelligence 
and  virtue,  including  that  ever  higher  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil  which  will  still  further  assimilate  them  to 
divine  beings,  both  here  and  hereafter.  They  perceive 
that  man's  mortal  career  is  not  one  of  ordeal  and  expia- 


68  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

tion,  but  one  of  coercive  and  persuasive  growth  and  de- 
velopment,— physical  and  psychical.  The  ideas  of  man's 
fall,  degeneracy,  and  legal  and  moral  insolvency  and  of 
the  existence  and  necessity  of  a  divine  mediator  and  of 
vicarious  expiation  and  atonement  have  been  appropri- 
ate, and  doubtlessly  necessary,  means  of  human  develop- 
ment, but  they  have  been  provisional,  and  not  final  and 
ultimate,  conclusions.  They  are  man's  self-evolved 
motives  and  stimulants  to  endeavor,  hope  and  progress, 
and  when  theyhave  filled  the  measure  of  their  usefulness 
they  will  give  place  to  higher  and  truer  conceptions. 


REVELATIONS. 

Our  inherited  faith  in  divine  revelations  and  in  the 
sanctity  and  infallibility  of  ancient  religious  writings  is 
another  relic  of  an  undeveloped  and  superstitious  Past, 
which  needs  explanation  to  our  generation.  Why  did 
the  Jew,  in  common  with  the  Parsee,  Brahmin,  and  other 
ancient  peoples,  bestow  such  sanctity  and  unreasoning 
faith  upon  their  primitive  writings  ?  Why  were  the 
simple  precepts  and  crude  conceptions  and  narratives  of 
ancient  writings  treated  as  of  divine  origin  and  of  infal- 
lible authority,  to  the  exclusion  of  later  and  more  rational 
writings  ?  We  answer,  first,  that  it  was  by  reason  of 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    69 

that  universal  habit,  already  noticed,  of  reversing  the 
order  of  human  wisdom,  knowledge  and  excellence,  and 
of  projecting  the  age,  venerableness  and  perfection  of 
the  world  back  into  its  ignorant  and  undeveloped  in- 
fancy :  and  secondly,  by  reason  of  the  impression  of  the 
friendly  intimacy  of  the  early  fathers  with  spirits  and. 
divine  beings,  derived  from  their  own  naive  recitals  and 
accounts  of  their  familiar  intercourse  with  such  divine 
or  superhuman  beings.  As  we  have  said,  men,  who 
are  only  capable  of  concrete  thought  and  expression, 
habitually  and  neccessarily  speak  and  write  in  this 
manner  without  their  at  all  attributing  special  validity 
or  verity  to  their  own  utterances,  or  .meaning  to  convey 
the  idea  of  special  and  exceptional  intercourse  with 
Divine  or  spiritual  beings  in  the '  sense  attributed  to 
them  by  their  descendeiits.  They  habitually  presented 
their  concrete  ideas  in  concrete,  sensuous  forms — in 
parables,  fables,  legends,  myths,  allegories  and  other 
figurative  and  narrative  forms.  When  dreams,  ideas  and 
visions  were  presented  to  their  minds,  they  were  treated 
as  actual  communications  from  the  spiritual  beings  from 
whom  they  were  supposed  to  emanate,  whether  God, 
spirit  or  demon  ;  and  were  detailed  as  the  sayings  or  con- 
versations of  such  beings.  They  naively  tell  us  of  their 
Gods  talking  and  arguing  with  them,  and  of  the  honor 
they  did  them  by  becoming  the  fathers  of  demi-Gods  by 
their  wives  and  daughters,  and  of  the  sons  of  God 
marrying  the  daughters  of  men  and  raising  up  "  giants 
of  men  in  those  days  ;  " — probably  referring  to  the  ques- 
tionable honor  done  them  by  some  chief  or  king  whom 
they  afterwards  deified,  and  to  the  marriage  of  descend- 
ants of  royal  or  superior  races  with  their  inferiors. 


/O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION 

Naturally  disposed  to  venerate  and  exalt,  and  even  to 
deify,  their  ancestors  and  their  ancient  and  renowned 
rulers  and  Priests  who  wrote  these  "sacred  books," 
men  not  only  ignorantly  misconceive  the  true  meaning 
of  these  early  recitals,  but  strongly  incline  to  construe 
them  favorably  to  the  marvellous  character  and  capacities 
of  these  venerable  and  idealized  progenitors.  The 
sacred,  the  supernatural  and  the  miraculous  always  loom 
up  in  proportion  to  distance  and  time,  and  in  the  inverse 
ratio  of  rationality  and  intelligence.  Millions  of  Chris- 
tians, to-day,  bow  at  the  shrines  of  early  saints,  the 
stories  of  whose  lives  and  miracles,  if  told  as  occurring 
now,  would  be  laughed  at  in  our  nurseries  ;  while  it  is 
rationally  certain  that,  if  Jesus  or  St.  Peter  were  now  to 
enter  one  of  our  fashionable  churches  with  their  accus- 
tomed dress  and  manner,  they  would  be  invited  to  back 
seats  or  the  gallery  ;  and  were  they  to  stroll  through 
the  country  preaching  in  the  fields  and  streets  against 
the  doctrines  and  the  preachers  and  deacons  of  the 
churches  as  they  once  did  against  those  of  popular 
Judaism,  they  might  deem  themselves  fortunate  if  they 
were  not  arrested  for  vagrancy,  nuisance  or  disturbing 
the  peace.  The  fathers  of  the  later  Jews  had  stoned  the 
very  prophets  which  their  descendants  honored,  while 
they  themselves  stoned  or  maltreated  those  who  would 
be  venerated  by  subsequent  generations  ;  and  certainly 
Christians  would  now  be  even  less  tolerant  than  were 
the  Jews  of  new  and  miraculous  pretensions  of  ignorant 
or  unlearned  men, — or  of  any  miraculous  pretensions 
whatever. 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    /I 

Alleged  inspirations,  since  those  attributed  to  the 
early  patriarchs,  have  several  different  sources.  There 
have  been  the  designed  deceptions  of  Priests  and  rulers, 
the  better  to  deceive  or  intimidate  their  enemies,  or  to 
inspire  or  control  their  own  people,  as  well  as  of  the 
well-meaning  reformer,  to  secure  the  ear  of  the  super- 
stitious masses  ;  and  also  of  charlatans  and  impostors  to 
dupe  their  victims.  But  there  is,  still  further,  the  honest, 
but  misconstrued,  visions  and  rhapsodies  of  the  poet,  and, 
underlying  all  these,  there  are  those  arising  from  ignor- 
ance and  false  conceptions — from  unintentional  self-impo- 
sition and  delusion,  which  constitute  the  chief  source  and 
support  of  the  idea  of  inspiration.  These  latter,  alone, 
need  seriously  to  engage  our  attention,  as  they  constitute 
the  basis  of  the  whole. 

The  men  who  lived  thousands  of  years  before  Esqui- 
rol  was  born,  and  from  whom  we  derived  our  notions  of 
deity,  spirituality  and  spiritual  communications  and  rela- 
tions, had  no  idea  of  natural  diseases  and  derangements 
of  the  brain  and  their  control  over  the  action  of  the 
mind.  Nor,  indeed,  had  they  any  conception  of  natural 
diseases  or  of  natural  causation  of  any  kind,  in  our  sense 
of  those  terms.  It  is  late  before  man  reaches  such  con- 
ceptions, still  later  before  he  recognizes  the  law-governed 
character  of  all  physical  causation,  and  still  later  when 
he  applies  the  law  of  causation  to  mental  phenomena. 
Prior  to  these  conceptions,  men  attribute  all  causation  to 
voluntary  personal  agencies.  If  they  were  sick,  they 
were  being  punished  by  God,  injured  by  some  demon,  or 
bewitched  by  an  enemy.  To  such  men  the  men,  angels, 
monstrous  forms,  demons  and  supposed  Gods  who  visited 


72  .    .  •  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

and  conversed  with  them  in  dreams  and  visions,  as  well 
as  their  own  imaginary  flights  and  ramblings  through 
space,  paradise  or  pandemonium,  were,  all,  most  porten- 
tious  realities  and  the  subjects  of  most  anxious  interpre- 
tations. Upon  them  often  depended  the  rise  and  fall  of 
kingdoms,  dynasties  and  religions,  as  well  as  the  fate  of 
individuals  and  battles.  The  defence  of  Jesus  by  Pilate 
was  greatly  stimulated  by  his  wife's  dreams. 

While  men  thus  believed  in  direct,  personal  causation 
by  Gods,  spirits,  witches  and  demons,  as  well  as  in  the 
reality  and  profound  significance  of  dreams,  visions  and 
hallucinations,  they  also  spoke  and  wrote  of  them  in  the 
same  sense,  and  as  if  such  mental  manifestations  were 
actual  sensuous  facts  and  occurrences.  They  had  no  idea 
of  purely  cerebral  sensations.  The  celebrated  traveller, 
Sir  Samuel  Baker,  tells  us,  in  speaking  of  the  mental 
modes  and  habits  of  the  present  Arabic  descendants  of 
Abraham,  that,  "  Should  the  present  history  of  the  coun- 
try be  written  by  an  Arab  scribe,  the  style  of  the  de- 
scription would.be  purely  that  of  the  Old  Testament,  and 
the  various  calamities  or  good  fortunes  that  have  in  the 
course  of  nature  befallen  both  the  tribes  and  individuals, 
would  be  recounted  either  as  special  visitations  of-  Divine 
wrath,  or  blessings  for  good  deeds  performed.  If  in  a 
dream  a  particular  course  of  action  is  suggested,  the 
Arab  believes  that  God  has  spoken  and  directed  him. 
The  Arab  scribe  would  describe  the  event  as  the  "  voice 
of  the  Lord  "  having  spoken  unto  the  person,  or  that 
"  God  appeared  to  him  in  a  dream  and  said,  etc."  Pre- 
cisely such  language  as  this  is  used  in  the  Jewish  Scrip- 
tures, and  was  written  with  precisely  the  same  concep- 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    73 

tions  and  modes  of  thought  and  expression ;  and  yet, 
men  who  have  long  outgrown  such  mental  modes,  now, 
under  pressure  of  their  superstitious  reverence  for 
"  The  Book,"  accept  such  recitals  as  the  inspired  record 
of  literal  facts. 


But  more  potent,  because  more  incomprehensible 
and  mysterious,  than  dreams,  was  the  abnormal  or  disor- 
dered waking-activities  of  the  brain.  The  mental  phe- 
nomena of  insanity  which  are  now  known  to  be  the  re- 
sults of  physical  disease  have,  everywhere  among  ignorant 
peoples,  been  treated  as  possessing  a  mysterious  and  awe- 
inspiring  significance  and  sacredness  ;  and  an  immature 
and  uninformed  Reason  has  given  to  the  distorted  and 
monstrous  visions  and  the  incongruous  ravings  of  Mania 
a  credence  which  has  been  refused  to  the  profoundest 
Philosophy.  Man  not  only  believes*  but  desires  to  be- 
lieve, in  such  mysterious  utterances.  He  is  feverish  to 
get  a  glimpse  of  the  "  Spirit-world  "  and  of  the  Hereafter, 
and  with  a  perfect  passion  he  loves  mystery  for  the  sake 
of  its  mystery.  His  reason  is  too  immature  and  his 
knowledge  too  imperfect  to  lift  the  veil  from  the  face  of 
Nature  or  to  grasp  her  designs  from  her  manifestations 
and  processes,  but  his  desires  and  imaginations,  leaping 
all  barriers,  act  as  temporary  substitutes  for  knowledge  ; 
and  all  doors  fly  wide  before  the  "  open  sesame "  of 
dreams  and  visions,  and  Somnia  and  Mania  walk  hand- 
in-hand  through  the  Infinite, — alike  defying  the  limita- 
tions of  Time,  Space  and  Reason.  This  is  what  man 


74  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

longs  to  do  in  reality,  and  for  the  knowledge  and  facts 
he  would  thus  acquire,  he  greedily  accepts  any  and  every 
attainable  substitute, — however  wildly  extravagant  or 
absurdly  impossible.  Reason  having  failed  to  satisfy  his 
longings,  he  not  only  ignores,  but  overrides  it.  Men  who 
believe  in  special  inspirations  find  the  professed  or  sup- 
posed explorers  and  revealers  of  the  "  Unknown,"  to  be 
exceptional  men,  who,  in  exceptional  states  and  in  an 
exceptional  manner,  give  descriptions  and  utterances 
which  are  equally  exceptional,  and  which  are  often  wildly 
incoherent,  absurdly  incongruous,  or  Dephically  obscure. 
They  gradually  observe,  that  invisible  beings  do  not  seek, 
as  their  medium  of  communication,  natural,  common- 
sense,  practical  people,  but  habitually  avoid  them  in 
favor  of  the  opposite  and  exceptional  classes ;  and  that 
natural,  common-sense  people  never  think,  speak  or  act 
like  these  mysterious  mediums  and  prophets.  They 
learn  that  it  is  only  when  the  man  is  "  not  himself  "  or 
"  not  at  himself  "  that  these  mysterious  dramas  are  per- 
formed in  his  brain, — only  when  he  is  maundering  in  a 
trance,  convulsed  with  excitement,  or  pouring  forth  the 
wild  visions  engendered  by  the  rigors  of  asceticism, — 
only  when  his  friends  can  no  longer  recognize  in  his 
words  and  acts  his  old  or  accustomed  Self, — only  when 
some  new  and  strange  spirit  seemed  to  possess  him  and 
to  have  usurped  control  over  his  mental  action  and  iden- 
tity,— in  short,  only  when  he  seems  to  be  either  "  posses- 
sed of  a  devil "  or  filled  or  occupied  by  some  holier  ghost 
or  Spirit.  Believing,  as  they  do,  in  the  universal  and 
exclusively  voluntary  causation,  such  men  naturally  con- 
clude that,  when  an  entirely  or  manifestly  different  spirit 
is  exhibited  by  a  person,  there  must  be  another  spirit 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    /5 

actually  possessing  his  body  and  acting  in  place  of  his 
own.  They  never  thought  of  looking  for  the  cause  of 
his  strange  and  altered  mental  action  in  his  own 
bodily  disorders  and  changes.  It  was,  of  course,  some 
other  good  or  evil  spirit  which  had  "  entered  into  "  and 
"  possessed  him,"  and  acted  through  his  organs. 

Here,  then,  in  this  belief  in  the  supernatural  origin 
of  the  dreams'  and  the  feverish  visions  and  hallucinations 
of  the  morbid  mind,  we  perceive  clearly  the  cause  and 
origin  of  -the  whole  doctrine  and  belief  of  "  devil  pos- 
session "  and  "  special  revelations."  The  thoughts  of 
the  "  possessed  "  or  "  inspired  "  person  were  expressed 
through  his  body,  but  they  emanated  from,  and  were  con- 
trolled by,  Gods  or  Spirits  from  the  "  other  world  ; "  and, 
of  course,  spirits  from  the  "  other  world,"  knew  all 
about  that  other  world  and  the  future.  When  they 
spoke  through  a  human  medium,  the  only  question  to  be 
determined  by  the  hearer  was,  whether  the  author  of  the 
thought  and  language  was  a  good  or  an  evil  spirit — 
whether  they  came  from  a  heavenly  and  truthful  spirit 
or  from  a  demoniac  and  deceptive  one.  Upon  the 
decision  of  this  question  would  depend  the  conclusion  as 
to  whether  the  man  was  "  devil  possessed  "  or  "  divinely 
inspired  " — a  truthful  prophet  and  revelator  or  an  unreli- 
able one.  These  morbid  mental  manifestations  had 
become,  no  longer  the  results  of  ideas  put  into  men's 
minds  by  God,  and  which  were  common  to  all  men, — 
but  were  the  direct  action  of  the  divine  or  diabolical 
spirits  who  had  taken  control  of  their  bodies  and  organs. 
The  more  incomprehensible,  unnatural  and  unmanlike 
they  were,  the  more  certain  they  were  to  have  come 


76  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

from  superhuman  sources.  The  more  mysterious  they 
were,  the  more  ominous  they  became,  and  the  more 
appropriate  to  the  invisible  and  mysterious  beings  of  the 
unknown  realms  of  mystery.  Mystery  and  occult  mean- 
ing were  then  regarded  as  evidences  of  divinely  aided 
wisdom,  and  their  highest  intellectual  achievements  were 
expressed  in  riddles,  even  where  the  mental  manifesta- 
tions were  normal.  To  get  their  ideas  couched  in  sym- 
bols so  obscure  as  to  puzzle  the  minds  of  the  most  acute 
interpreters,  was  an  achievement  only  excelled  by 
the  utterly  uninterpretable  utterances  and  visions  of  the 
insane,- — (that  is,  of  the  Spirits  "  possessing "  them). 
Even  those  prophets  by  profession,  who  were  not  insane, 
generally  affected  the  mysterious  and  bizarre  forms  and 
visions  of  the  "  possessed."  It  would  not  do  for  proph- 
ets to  talk  like  ordinary  mortals.  That  their  mystic 
utterances  could  never  be  interpreted,  or  that  none 
could  ever  know  whether  they  were  rightly  interpreted 
or  not,  instead  of  consigning  them  to  the  limbo  of  Non- 
sense, added  the  highest  guaranty  of  their  superhuman 
origin  and  value.  Their  utility  was  even  heightened  by 
the  fact  of  their  inexplicability  ;  since  every  man  could 
interpret  them  to  suit  himself,  and  they  thus  become 
exhaustless  sources  of  hope  and  comfort  to  successive 
generations,  however  widely  differing  in  their  several  in- 
terpretations. Not  only  was  this  mystic  obscurity 
acknowledged  and  admired,  but  it  was  claimed,  even  by 
the  Apostles,  that  they  were  not  of  "  private  interpreta- 
tion," but  required  an  inspired  interpreter  whose  powers 
were  a  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  So  that,  those  for  whom 
these  divine  communications  were  intended  could,  not 
only  not  know  what  they  meant,  but  could  neither  know 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    // 

whether  their  utterers  were  inspired  prophets  or  design, 
ing  impostors,  nor  determine  whether  their  professedly, 
inspired  interpreters  were  really  inspired  and  truly  inter- 
preted them  or  not.  Thus  even  Ignorance  is  self-helpful, 
and  draws  the  most  wonderful  comfort  from  conclusions 
still  more  wonderful.  But  what  a  boundless  and  open 
field  for  imposture,  fraud  and  charlatanism  ! 


All  the  great  religions  have  had  their  supernatural 
origin,  their  divine  books,  and  their  inspired  teachers, 
authors  and  prophets,  and  each  has  claimed  that  those 
of  all  the  others  are  mere  impositions,  and  that  it,  alone, 
was  the  sole  depository  of  the  divine  word  and  sole  me- 
dium of  the  divine  favor.  About  the  claims  ot  each  other, 
they  reason  right  well,  considering ;  but  about  their  own 
pretensions  their  -  reason  is  silent.  Each  appeals  to  a 
long  record  of  undoubted  miracles  to  establish  its  pre- 
tensions, and  yet  denounces  an  equal  list  of  similar 
miracles,  similarly  proved,  that  are  vouched  by  each  of 
the  others.  Thus  each  is  proved  to  be  an  imposture  by 
all  the  others,  and  each  overthrows  its  own  pretensions 
by  its  assaults  upon  the  similar,  and  similarly-proved, 
pretensions  of  all  the  rest !  If  the  assertion  of  ancient 
records  and  traditions  are  infallible,  then  each  has  a 
firm  basis  ;  if  not,  then  neither  has. 

The  inestimable  virtue  and  most  striking  peculiarity 
of  all  sacred  and  inspired  books  consists  in  the  wholly 
exceptional  fact,  that  they  prove  themselves, — and  are  thus 


78  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

self-sustaining  and  labor-saving.  By  a  process  outside 
the  domain  of  Reason  they  prove  their  sacred  infalli- 
bility by  their  inspiration,  and  when  asked  for  proof  of 
their  inspiration,  they  offer  their  own  sacred  and  infalli- 
ble assertion.  The  circle  is  as  short  as  it  is  complete 
and  convenient. 

The  peculiar  theological  value  of  most  prophecy 
consists  in  its  bein'g  incapable  of  refutation  from  its 
very  incomprehensibility,  as  well  as  in  its  capability  of 
confirming  or  refuting  any  theory  by  its  indefiniteness, 
obscurity  and  flexibility.  It  is  an  india-rubber  cloak  that 
will  fit  any  form  from  that  of  a  Hottentot  to  a  High- 
lander, with  either  end  up  or  either  side  out.  Christians 
in  the  first  century  were  tremblingly  awaiting  the  proph- 
esied end  of  the  world  :  they  are  waiting  still — charming 
perspicuity  ! 

The  total  absurdity  of  specifically  foretelling  the 
future,  of  reversing  the  law  of  causation  and  the  nat- 
ural modes  of  Being,  or  of  giving  absolute  sanctity  and 
infallibility  to  anything  ever  written  by  human  hands 
or  in  human  language,  would  seem  sufficiently  palpable 
to  drive  all  such  conceptions  from  the  rank  of  intelligent 
beliefs.  The  future  never  exists.  Being  exists  in  the 
ever-evolving,  transforming,  and  becoming  Present. 
What  particular  forms  it  may  assume  or  evolve,  and  what 
special  modes  or  forms  of  motion  it  may  inaugurate  or 
change,  in  the  endless  succession  of  momentarily-becom- 
ing presents,  must  depend,  at  every  change,  upon  the 
existing  facts  and  efficiencies.  To  predict  a  non-existent 
fact,  therefore,  it  is  necessary  to  know  all  the  present  and 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    79 

intervening  causes,  conditions,  modes,  laws  and  processes 
to  be  involved  in  its  production.  In  the  absence  of  the 
actual  facts  and  realities  to  be  known  and  of  the  neces- 
sary knowledge  to  rationally  deduce  them,  man  could,  by 
no  possibility,  know  them.  The  highest  evidence  -which 
he  could  ever  claim  to  have,  would  be  some  effect  or 
effects  produced  in  his  own  mind,  which  purported  to  be, 
or  which  he  supposed  to  be,  representative  or  indicative 
of  the  coming  fact.  There  would  be  no  existing  fact  or 
reality  to  which  his  mind  could  representatively  respond. 
The  entire  facts  concerned  would  consist  of  his  own 
internally-originated  and  exclusively  subjective  mental' 
impressions  and  manifestations.  At  most,  the  whole 
matter  would  consist  of  the  man's  own  visions  or  dreams 
— the  actions  of  his  own  mind.  But  what  is  the  value 
of  his  own  dreams  and  mental  visions,  even  to  himself, — 
much  more  to  others  ?  And,  Who  is  to  determine  that 
value  ?  and,  How  are  they  to  determine  it  ?  These  are 
the  questions.  Men  may  dream  dreams,  eat  themselves 
into  nightmares,  starve  themselves  into  visions,  or  have 
morbid  illusions ;  but  what  of  it  ?  After  all,  they  'are, 
and  can  be,  nothing  but  one  man's  dreams,  visions, 
illusions  and  nightmares.  But  why  should  any  such 
mental  manifestations  of  any  one  man  be  regarded  as 
anything  more  than  what  they  are  ?  Why  give  any 
dream  or  vision  a  significance  beyond  the  fact  that  it  is 
a  dream  or  vision,  or  give  one  man's  dream  or  vision  a 
greater  significance,  sacredness  or  credence  than  an- 
other's ? 

When  men  believed  that  their  inclinations  and  every 
new  or  strange  idea  they  had  were  communicated  to 


8O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

their  minds  by  some  God  or  spirit,  and  were  controlled 
and  changed  by  such  unseen  agencies  at  their  pleasure, 
or  when  they  believed  that  such  invisible  spirits  entered 
into  persons  and  there  usurped  and  performed  the  offices 
of  their  own  spirits  or  minds,  we  can  understand  how 
such  men  could  believe  in  either  the  spiritual  or  divine 
origin  or  inspiration  of  men's  ideas  and  visions.  We 
can  understand,  also,  that  after  a  people  have  ceased  to 
believe  in  the  divine  or  spiritual  origin  of  the  generality 
of  man's  ideas  and  inclinations,  they  might  continue  to 
believe  in  such  an  origin  under  peculiar  conditions  or  in 
special  cases.  We  can  see  how  men  believing  in  such 
spiritual  influences,  and  knowing  nothing  of  natural  in- 
sanity, would  very  naturally  conclude  that  such  influences 
were  in  actual  operation  where  the  mental  action  was 
especially  singular  and  strange,  or  where  it  was  clearly 
unlike  the  original  and  known  mental  modes  and  actions 
of  the  persons  affected,  and  would  imagine  them  "  pos- 
sessed "  by  a  foreign  spirit.  What  else  could\\\vy_  believe  ? 

But  How  men  who  know  the  natural  physical  causes 
of  these  exceptional  mental  manifestations,  and  who 
know  that  the  men  who  promulgated  the  doctrines  of 
prophecy  and  inspiration  had  no  such  knowledge,  can 
still  maintain  the  sacredness  and  infallibility  of  their 
writings  and  declarations,  is  not  so  rationally  compre- 
hensible. The  very  same  phenomena  which  were  treated 
as  witchcraft,  or  as  spiritual  or  devil  "possession"  or 
"  inspiration "  or  as  inspired  dreams,  visions  or  proph- 
esies, would  not  now  be  considered  as  such,  were  they 
to  occur  in  our  day.  Why  then  do  we  solemnly  recog- 
nize them  as  such,  simply  because  they  were  so  treated 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    8 1 

by  early  and  ignorant  men  who  knew  no  better — who 
were  ignorant  of  the  facts  and  laws  which  make  us  view 
the  same  facts  and  occurrences  as  natural  and  law- 
governed  phenomena  ?  With  their  childish  knowledge 
and  beliefs,  their  conclusions  were  natural  and  legitimate. 
With  ours,  they  are  childish  and  impossible.  With  a 
primitive  world  of  Scientists  such  a  thing  as  witchcraft, 
inspiration,  prophecy  or  "  devil  possession  "  would  never 
have  been  heard  of. 

If  we  did  not  know,  indeed,  the  almost  resistless 
potency  and  vitality  of  hereditary  beliefs,  and  the  super- 
stitious, reverence  and  fears  they  impose  upon  the  human 
mind,  we  should  be  at  a  loss  to  conceive,  independent  of 
scientific  refutation,  how  men  entertaining  the  concep- 
tions of  God  and  his  attributes,  as  we  now  do,  could  give 
a  moment's  credit  to  the  idea  of  a  special  divine  revela- 
tion of  any  kind.  If  it  were  not  impossible,  from  the 
very  nature  of  our  intelligence  and  mental  action,  that 
they  could  be  produced  in  any  but  the  natural  methods, 
it  would  only  be  because  even  contradictions  and  im- 
possibilities are  possible  to  God  and  consistent  with 
His  nature  and  methods.  If,  therefore,  God  could  ac- 
tually will  the  action  of  man's  mind,  and  put  ideas  into 
His  head  by  a  mere  act  of  volition  of  his  own  mind,  it 
could  only  be  because  nothing  whatever  is  impossible  to 
Him ;  and,  in  that  case,  He  could  as  easily  will  one  man 
to  know  the  truth  as  another,  or  to  will  all  men  to  know 
it  as  to  will  one  to  know  it.  What  conceivable  reason, 
then,  can  be  assigned  for  His  not  doing  so — for  His 
communicating  to  a  few,  what  was  intended  and  necessary 
for  all  ?  Why  did  he  communicate  His  will  to  one  man 

6 


82  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

in  one  country  and  of  one  language  and  one  race,  when  the 
matter  involved  the  eternal  happiness  or  misery  of  all  men 
everywhere  ;  and  thereby  make  the  salvation  or  damna- 
tion of  the  whole  Human  Race  depend,  not  only  upon  the 
dreams  and  visions  of  one  man  or  a  few  men,  but  upon 
the  "say  so"  of  such  selected  individuals  as  to  both  the 
fact  and  nature  of  their  dreams,  or  upon  the  varied  and 
conflicting  interpretations  of  them  by  other  people  ? 
Why  not,  in  like  manner,  reveal  to  each  man  what  He 
desired  him  to  know  ?  For  another  man  to  tell  us  that 
God  had  revealed  His  purposes  to  him,  is  no  revelation 
to  us.  At  most  it  is  but  his  assertion  and  interpretation 
of  his  own  mental  manifestations.  Why  communicate 
his  will,  even  to  the  few,  in  dreams  and  visions,  when 
the  experience  and  reason  of  mankind  would  ultimately 
be  compelled  to  discard  all  dreams  and  visions  as  not 
only  insecure,  but  worthless  evidence  for  any  purpose, 
save  as  to  the  state  of  the  dreamer's  own  health,  or 
bodily  or  mental  condition  ?  Why  should  God,  not  only 
select  methods  of  communication  which  are  of  all  others 
the  most  obscure  and  worthless,  but  also  shape  these  into 
symbols  or  riddles  which  utterly  defy  all  assured  inter- 
pretation ?  Why  give  us  evidence  which  Reason  re- 
jects as  worthless,  and  give  even  that  worthless  evidence 
in  a  form  which  required  another  inspired  man  to  inter- 
pret it,  and  thus  compel  us  to  trust  both  the  mere  "  say 
so"  of  the  interpreter  and  the  "  say  so  "  of  the  dreamer 
about  evidence  which  an  informed  reason  necessarily  re- 
jects as  worthless  even  when  directly  communicated  ? 
Why,  again,  give  evidence  so  liable  to  misconstruction, 
to  misconceptions,  to  misinterpretations,  falsehoods, 
frauds  and  impostures,  and  which  is  worthless  in  its  very 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    83 

nature,  to  unknown  men,  in  unknown  lands,  in  the  misty 
ages  of  ignorance  and  superstition,  for  the  purpose  of 
convincing  and  informing  men  living  in  remote  coun- 
tries and  in  the  remote  future,  instead  of  giving  it  direct 
to  the  men  themselves  ?  Why  cause  mysterious  dreams 
and  visions  to  float  through  the  brain  of  a  Jew  on  the 
banks  of  the  Jordan  for  the  purpose  of  informing  men 
living  on  the  Ohio  or  Amazon  amidst  the  wilds  of  a 
continent  which  was  to  remain  undiscovered  for  three 
thousand  years,  instead  of  making  the  Indian  dream  for 
himself  ?  Nay,  worse  still,  Why  did  He  also  cause  the 
Indian  to  dream  like  dreams  .and  see  like  visions  and 
make  like  prophesies,  which  he  also  believed  as  the  Jew 
believed  his,  and  for  the  same  reasons,  and  then  damn 
the  Indian  for  not  believing  the  dreams  and  stories  of 
the  unknown  Jew,  (after  they  had  come  down  to  him 
through  so  many  dark  ages  of  superstition  and  so  many 
different  languages  and  conflicting  translations  and  in- 
terpretations,) instead  of  believing  his  own  ?  Why  did 
God  give  to  man  no  power  save  his  own  reason,  to  test 
and  determine  truth  and  thus  protect  himself  from 
error,  fraud  and  imposition,  and  then  make  his  eternal 
happiness  or  eternal  punishment  depend  upon  evidences 
— the  truth  of  which  he  not  only  had  no  power  of  ration- 
ally testing  and  determining,  but  which  his  reason 
must  inevitably  reject  with  a  certainty  and  vigor  exactly 
proportioned  to  his  growth,  freedom  and  enlightenment  ? 

Or,  again,  if  dreams  and  visions  ever  come  from  God, 
Why  not  all  dreams  and  visions  come  from  Him  ?  If 
they  do  not  all  come  from  Him,  How  are  we  to  deter- 
mine, even  among  our  own  dreams  which  are  from  God 


84  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

and  which  are  not  ?  Or,  if  one  man's  dreams  and  vis- 
ions are  better  than  another's,  How  are  we  to  determine 
which  is  the  true  and  which  the  false  ?  Shall  we  deter- 
mine by  the  character  of  the  dream,  or  that  of  the 
dreamer  ?  And  who,  in  either  case,  is  to  guaranty  the 
infallibility  of  our  own  judgments  ?  If  we  are  to  judge  by 
the  character  of  the  dream,  we  have  no  criterion  to  judge 
by,  and  shall  find  them  determined  and  characterized  by 
the  dreamer's  own  health,  state  and  condition.  If  we 
attempt  to  judge  by  the  character  of  the  dreamer  or  Seer 
himself,  we  find  ourselves  without  either  the  requisite 
proof  or  the  requisite  capacity  to  do  it,  and  without 
the  slightest  means  of  knowing  the  requisite  qualifica- 
tions for  a  safe  dreamer  ;  unless,  indeed,  we  accept  the 
old  notion  that  a  man  is  divinely  inspired  when  he  is 
especially  incomprehensible  and  unhuman,  and  is  in- 
sanely wild  and  obscure.  If  we  are  to  credit  the  belief 
or  assertion  of  the  prophet  or  dreamer  himself,  we  are  at 
the  mercy  of  every  self-deluded  enthusiast,  lunatic  or 
impostor  who  approaches  us,  and  must  accept  the  absurd 
and  conflicting  utterances  and  pretensions  of  the  whole. 
For  impostors  and  lunatics  alike  claim  inspiration.  If 
we  attempt  to  determine  any  of  these  matters  by  reason, 
we  appeal  to  an  arbiter  which  inflexibly  rejects  the 
whole.  Men,  led  in  blind  and  trembling  subjection  to 
their  hereditary  notions,  dare  not  ask  themselves  whether 
a  beneficent  and  just  God,  who  had  the  power  to  make 
every  man  know  the  truth  for  himself,  would  make  all 
men,  of  all  time,  depend  for  their  salvation  or  damnation 
upon  their  belief  in,  and  obedience  to,  information  based 
upon  evidence  of  such  a  character,  alleged  to  have  been 
given  to  unknown  men  of  unknown  times,  in  remote 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    85 

lands,  and  transmitted  in  an  alleged  record  abounding 
in  manifest  ignorance,  errors,  alterations,  forgeries,  self- 
contradictions,  pretended  miracles,  witchcrafts  and  other 
discarded  superstitions — a  record  which  itself  declares 
its  essential  doctrine  a  "  stumbling  block  "  to  the  very 
people  to  whom  the  divine  communication  was  sent,  and 
to  be  "  foolishness "  to  the  wisest  of  the  then  living 
peoples,  and  to  have  been  designedly  hidden-  from  the 
"  wise  and  prudent "  by  God  Himself,  and  to  have  been 
"  revealed  unto  babes,""  and  promulgated  by  ignorant 
men  by  the  "  foolishne'ss  of  preaching  ; "  and  which  its 
believers,  in  all  ages,  have  admitted  to  be  based  upon 
mysteries  which  are  not  only  incomprehensible  and  in 
absolute  conflict  with,  human  reason,  but  which  utterly 
defy  human  conception — a  record  which  has  engendered 
about  a  thousand  distinct  and  conflicting  sects,  and  an 
incalculable  number  of  conflicting  individual  intrepreta- 
tions  ;  whose  existing  copies  of  the  New  Testament, 
alone,  are  acknowledged  to  present  some  25000  differ- 
ences, about  2000  of  which  are  acknowledgly  of  moment 
— a  record  which  both  itself  and  its  believers  admit  that 
no  man  can  have  the  faith  it  requires  unless  it  be  GIVEN 
to  him  by  an  act  of  God,  and  that  its  prophecies  require 
an  inspired  interpreter — a  record  which  has  not,  after 
the  lapse  of  nineteen  centuries,  reached  one-half  of  the 
human  race,  which  has  not  been  efficiently  embraced  by 
one-twentieth  of  them,  and  which  has  never  been  under- 
stood by  one  !  Dare  we  really  think,  and  yet  believe  that 
this  is  the  method  which  the  Divine  Father  and  good 
God  would  take  to  communicate  His  will  to  His  igno- 
rant children,  and  then  damn  them  if  they  did  not  or 
could  not  believe  them,  or  for  not  knowing  them  at  all 


86  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

— for  being  among  the  nations  that  forgot  God  ?  If 
God  had  racked -His  infinite  wisdom  through  eons  of 
ages  in  examining  the  methods  and  ways  calculated  to 
convince  and  assure  human  reason,  could  He  have  found 
a  better  way  "  how  not  to  do  it  ?  "  Is  it  not  a  blasphemy 
to  charge  it  upon  God  ?  Are  we  to  make  the  absurd 
excuse,  that  "  God's  ways  are  not  like  man's  ways  ?  "  If 
God's  ways  differ  from  man's,  they  can  only  differ  in 
their  superior  rationality  and  perfection,  not  in  their  inef- 
ficiency, irrationality,  incongruity,  inconsistency  and 
absurdity.  What  God  really  purposed  has  been  actually 
accomplished,  and,  for  those  ends,  the  means  have  been 
efficient,  rational  and  perfect.  To  produce  the  desired 
results  in  man,  such  as  he  has  been,  the  exactly  right 
and  necessary  means  and  methods  have  been  used. 
Those  means  and  their  results,  thus  far,  are  open  to  in- 
vestigation ;  but  the  ultimate  end  and  purpose  they  in- 
volve must  be  won  from  reason  and  the  whole  course  of 
the  facts  themselves,  and  not  from  the  temporary  and 
specific  desires  and  dreams  of  undeveloped  and  ignorant 
men.  The  whole  facts  indicate,  that  the  divine  end  and 
purpose  was  the  physical  and  psychical  development  of 
man  by  the  inherent  powers  and  proclivities  of  his  own 
nature,  acting  under  the  influence  of  the  conditions  of 
his  existence ; — in  short,  by  natural  self-evolution.  This 
has  been  accomplished,  and  by  means  rationally  and 
actually  calculated  to  produce  the  purposed  end.  The 
fact  is.  that  the  purpose,  whatever  it  was,  had  reference 
to  man  and  to  his  mind  and  action,  and  the  ways  and 
means  had  to  be  such,  not  as  would  apply  to  God  or 
some  other  being  "  whose  ways  are  past  finding  out," 
but  such  as  would  produce  the  desired  effects  upon  ig- 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    8/ 

norant  and  feeble  man,  by  his  own  ways.  Men  have 
erred  in  assuming  God's  purposes,  or  gathering  them 
from  their  own,  or  other's,  dreams  and  desires,  and  then 
attempting  to  reconcile  them  with  their  own  false  or 
imperfect  notions  of  the  facts,  instead  of  first  ascertain- 
ing the  facts  as  produced  by  God's  actual  means  and 
methods,  and  then  determining  His  purposes  by  the  pro- 
gressive course,  order  and  results  of  His  operations. 
The  truth  is,  that  if  God's  purposes  were  those  assigned 
to  Him  by  our  popular  religion,  His  means  and  methods 
have  not  only  been  irrational  failures,  but  were  neces- 
sarily doomed  to  be  such  by  the  facts  of  Nature.  No 
reliable  information  can  be  communicated,  to  all  peoples 
of  all  generations,  in  human  language,  whether  written 
or  spoken.  The  diversity  of  human  languages,  their 
vagueness  and  uncertainty  and  their  incompetency  from 
incompleteness,  as  well  as  their  constant  changes  from 
generation  to  generation,  and  the  impossibility  of  perfect 
translations  from  one  language  into  another,  would  ren- 
der the  propagation  and  continuance  of  clear  and  definite 
communications  impossible,  even  if  they  were  such  to 
the  minds  of  the  inspired  medium.  This  objection, 
alone,  is  fatal  to  such  methods. 


A  very  fair  illustration  of  the  perspicuity  and 'practical 
value  of  inspiration  and  prophecy  may  be  seen  by  the 
absurd  general  results  of  the  whole  scriptural  prophecies 
concerning  the  end  of  the  World, — already  alluded  to, 
and  concerning  the  Christ,  as  exhibited  by  the  beliefs 


88  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

and  histories  of  the  Jews  and  Christians.  The  Jew  has 
waited,  through  thousands  of  years  of  suffering  and 
slavery,  for  the  coming  of  their  prophesied  Messiah,  and 
still  wait  on.  The  Christian,  basing  his  creed  upon  the 
same  Messiah  and  the  same  prophecies,  stakes  his  hopes 
of  salvation  and  of  escape  from  hell  upon  the  fact  that 
this  same  prophesied  Christ  came  into  the  world  and 
saved  it  near  2000  years  ago,  and  have,  from  age  to  age, 
ever  since,  been  anxiously  looking  for  his  prophesied 
"  second  coming  "  and  the  end  of  the  world.  The  Jews 
actually  saw  and  knew  the  man  the  Christians  now 
worship  as  the  promised  Jewish  Messiah  and  Saviour, 
and  denounced  him  as  an  impostor  and  traitor;  and, 
finally,  had  him  ignominiously  executed  as  a  criminal  in 
the  midst  of  thieves :  the  Christians  worship  him  as 
Christ  and  God.  And  yet,  each  clings  to  the  infallibility 
of  the  inspired  word  and  the  truth  of  the  prophecies 
upon  which  they  both  depend.  What  a  safe  and  reliable 
light  to  guide  Humanity  !  What  an  infallible  assurance 
for  the  salvation  of  the  Race  and  for  the  hopes  of  the 
world  !  What  God-like  precision,  perspicuity  and  prac- 
tical efficiency ! 

MIRACLES. 

Of  a  piece  with  the  old  notions  of  the  reality  of  reve- 
lations and  dreams,  and  woven  from  the  same  materials 
as  witchcraft  and  devil-possession,  is  the  belief  in  mir- 
acles ;  and  like  them,  also,  it  has  ceased  to  be  realizable 
to  the  modern  mind,  and  is  fast  fading  out  of  the  list  of 
possible  credibilities.  If  the  present  belief  were  at  all 
the  product  of  modern  reason,  or  was  in  any  manner 


ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS.  89 

dependent  upon  it,  the  very  idea  of  miracles  would  long 
since  have  been  discarded.  There  is  the  same  Scrip- 
tural authority,  and  equal  reason,  for  the  truth  of  the  dis. 
carded  and  despised  beliefs  in  dreams,  sorcery,  charms 
and  devil-possession  as  there  is  for  inspiration  and  mir- 
acles ;  and  yet  these  have  fallen  into  utter  contempt, 
while  the  latter  beliefs  still  maintain  a  certain  hold  upon 
the  popular  mind.  The  Protestant  World  carry  their 
inconsistency  still  further,  and  credit  the  miracles  ante- 
rior to  the  close  of  the  Apostolic  Age,  and  there  end  the 
"  age  of  miracles  " — rejecting  modern  miracles  even  of 
Christian  origin.  Why  is  it  that  Protestants,  then,  cling 
to  these  beliefs  while  discarding  equally  rational  and 
Scriptural  ones  of  the  same  brood  ?  Or,  still  stronger, 
why  do  they  discard  all  miracles  and  prophecies,  save 
the  ancient  ones  ?  If  miracles  could  exist  in  one  age, 
they  could  exist  in  all  ages,  and  there  is  certainly  as 
much  proof  and  reason  to  sustain  the  discarded  miracles 
as  the  retained  ones  ;  and  there  is  greater  need  of  proof 
of  Christian  divinity  than  ever  before.  The  Scripture 
makes  no  intimation  of  such  a  distinction,  but  assures  us 
that  the  power  to  perform  these  various  wonders  should 
continue  to  follow  the  Church  and  verify  its  divine  origin 
and  support — be  in  fact  the  test  and  passport  of  true 
believers.  The  evidence  supporting  many  modern  Cath- 
olic and  even  Morman  miracles  is  much  more  legitimate 
and  plausible  than  that  upon  which  the  Scriptural  mir- 
acles rest.  Nothing  but  the  assumed  infallibility  of  the 
assertions  and  recitals  of  the  New  Testament  gives  its 
miracles  their  asserted  superiority.  But  the  same  sanc- 
tity and  infallibility  is  also  thrown  around  witchcraft, 
devil-possession  and  other  kindred  errors,  while  witch- 


9O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

craft  has  also  the  support  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
judicial  decisions  rendered  upon  sworn  testimony,  among 
them  those  of  our  own  New  England  tribunals.  There 
must  be  some  potent  cause  for  this  palpable  inconsist- 
ency— a  cause  which  it  is  by  no  means  difficult  to  com- 
prehend. 

Men  who  have  acquired  a  clear  conception  of  natural, 
law-governed  causation,  would  never  form  the  idea  of 
miracles  ;  nor  would  the  more  modern  mind  have  accepted 
it,  had  it  not  been  an  inheritance  from  our  ancestors 
transmitted  under  the  almost  resistless  executorship  of 
the  Church,  aided  by  the  coercive  terrors  of  both  tem- 
poral and  eternal  punishment  and  by  the  force  of  ven- 
eration, education  and  custom,  and  also  fostered  by  the 
hopes  and  promises  of  future  happiness  and  by  man's 
aspirations  for  immortal  life.  This  whole  class  of  beliefs 
is  alien  to  the  rational  thought  of  our  Time — is  in  conflict 
with  our  intelligence.  They  can  only  be  accepted  by  a 
blind  faitJi,  under  the  pressure  of  motives,  and  in  defiance 
of  reason.  And  as  they  do  not  originate  with,  or  rest 
upon,  our  reason,  they  are  not  at  all  dependent  upon  it 
for  their  support,  and  therefore  cannot  be  directly  over- 
thrown by  it.  To  even  an  enlightened  Christian,  of  our 
day,  the  suspension  or  reversal  of  the  natural  laws  and 
efficiencies  of  the  Universe  and  the  very  fact  of  either 
arbitrary  and  lawless  volition  or  lawless  causation,  any- 
where, are  incomprehensible.  He  can  only  accept  them 
as  mysteries  transcending  his  powers  of  conception  and 
contradicting  his  rational  convictions.  The  motives  for 
their  acceptance  are  so  strong  as  to  make  him  accept 
them,  although  he  cannot  see  how  it  is  possible  for  them 


ORIGIN   AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    9! 

to  exist.  Science  and  Reason  have  shown  him  their  im- 
possibility, but  both  have  failed  to  go  further  and  also 
furnish  him  the  desired  substitute  for  the  cherished 
theory  which  propounds  and  rests  upon  these  assailed  be- 
liefs. They  have  rationally  undermined  the  basis  of  his 
hopes,  but  they  leave  unsatisfied  the  fundamental  and 
resistless  life-aspiration  of  the  Soul,  which  Christianity 
lamely  fosters  and  feeds.  They  have  demonstrated  the 
insecurity  of  the  Christian  haven,  but  they  have  neither 
furnished  a  new  anchor,  nor  pointed  to  a  new  port. 
They  have  offered  the  soul  only  negation  and  doubt  ; — 
a  food  upon  which  it  cannot  live.  For  the  masses,  any 
hope  is  better  than  none,  even  if  it  be  a  delusive  one. 
It  is  only  the  exceptional  Soul  that  can  continue  to  live 
in  the  vacuum  of  Negation.  It  is  not  wonderful,  there- 
fore, that  the  conquests  of  Reason  and  Science  have 
failed  to  be  commensurate  with  their  intellectual  tri- 
umphs. It  was  natural  that  men  should  have  jealously 
resisted  every  attack  threatening  the  authority  which 
had  signed  and  sealed  their  own  title-deeds  to  immortal- 
ity, and  had  given  them  their  coveted  assurance  of  a 
Divine  Redeemer  and  a  protecting  God.  Their  title- 
deeds  may  be  illegitimate,  but  they  constitute  the  only 
title  offered.  It  was  only  inch  by  inch  that  they  yielded 
their  outposts — such  as  dreams,  devil-possession,  witch- 
craft, and  modern  prophecy  and  miracles.  They  felt 
that  every  scriptural  belief  they  yielded  weakened  the 
sanctity  and  authority  of  their  title-deed.  Under  the 
full  pressure  of  rational  and  scientific  demonstrations, 
they  have  gradually  abandoned  such  of  their  irrational 
beliefs  as  were  not  deemed  absolutely  necessary  to  their 
faith.  But  to  abandon,  the  inspiration  and  the  miracu- 


92  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

lous  gifts  of  the  very  founders  of  their  faith,  was  to  yield 
the  very  foundations  of  their  entire  pretensions.  It  is 
for  this  reason  that  these  beliefs  have  survived  all  their 
kindred.  It  is  here,  then,  on  the  "ragged  edge"  of  Ne- 
cessity, that  Protestantism  has  taken  its  last  and  unten- 
able stand  :  a  position  more  advanced,  but  less  logical 
and  consistent,  than  that  of  the  Catholic.  They  have 
yielded  too  much  not  to  yield  more.  A  blind  faith  in 
an  infallible  authority  once  abandoned,  there  is  no  per- 
manent foot-hold  or  rest  for  an  irrational  creed. 


No  enlightened  Protestant  can  disguise  to  himself 
the  fact  that,  not  only  these  old  bible-beliefs  have  been 
abandoned  or  become  untenable,  but  that  the  very  basis 
and  fundamental  beliefs  upon  which  our  popular  Faith 
rests,— such  as  the  "  creation  byjiat;"  the  doctrines  of 
"  original  sin  and  condemnation ;  "  of  man's  primitive 
purity  and  his  fall  and  degradation  from  his  "  high  es- 
tate ; "  of  his  utter  depravity  and  hopeless  indebtedness 
to  God  for  penalties  incurred,  and  the-  necessity  for  a 
divine  blood-offering  as  a  vicarious  atonement,  or  pay- 
ment and  discharge  of  the  debts  and  penalties  due  from 
Humanity ;  of  salvation  by  the  mere  act  of  having  a 
blind  faith  in  that  which  is  in  itself  rationally  incredible 
and  impossible  of  belief  save  by  a  divine  "  enabling 
act ;  "  and  the  doctrine  of  a  hell  and  endless  punishment, 
— are  all  growing,  or  have  already  grown,  too  palpably 
erroneous  and  unrealizable  for  continued  belief.  The 
consciousness  of  this  fact  is  being  manifested,  almost 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    93 

every  day,  in  the  higher  Protestant  writings  and  teach- 
ings. It  has  become  next  to  impossible  for  an  honest 
and  informed  mind  to  resist  or  evade  the  proofs  that 
man  has  developed  from  a  savage  state  instead  of  having 
fallen  from  a  semi-angelic  one — that  he  has,  in  fact,  pro- 
gressed instead  of  retrograded.  And  yet,  if  this  old  doc- 
trine of  "  the  fall  "  be  a  mistake,  the  infallibility  of  the 
sacred  record  and  the  whole  fabric  of  Christian  theology 
vanishes  at  once.  For  the  reasons  already  given,  and  for 
those  alone,  is  the  doctrine  of  miracles  now  supported  in 
any  form  ;  and  that  support  would  cease,  at  least  so  far 
as  Protestants  are  concerned,  the  moment  Rationalism 
can  furnish  a  rational  hope  of  a  God  and  immortality. 


It  is  easy  to  understand  how  "  Moses  and  the  proph- 
ets," as  well  as  the  Apostles,  could  believe  in  miracles. 
With  their  conceptions  of  causation  and  of  God,  it  was 
not  only  rationally  possible,  but  quite  natural  and  con- 
sistent, for  them  to  entertain  such  beliefs.  There  was 
no  such  mental  inconsistency  involved  in  their  beliefs — 
no  such  conflict  with  their  reason  as  there  is  in  the  case 
of  men  who  comprehend  natural  law  and  natural  causa- 
tion. A  miracle  to  them  was  not  at  all  what  it  is  to  us. 
It  was  neither  a  suspension,  nor  reversal  of  the  "  laws  of 
Nature,"  nor  a  disregard  of  natural  causation  ;  since 
they  had  no  knowledge  of  the  existence  of  either.  The 
very  idea  which  constitutes  a  miracle  to  us,  was  impos- 
sible to  them.  To  them,  it  was  not  an  incomprehensible 


94  JESUS 'AND    RELIGION. 

or  unnatural  procedure.  It  neither  required  nor  intro- 
duced any  new  kind  of  agency  or  power ;  nor  any  new, 
or  even  unusual,  mode  of  causation  ;  nor  was  it  even 
confined  to  an  exercise  of  divine  power.  They  believed, 
as  has  been  said,  that  there  was  but  one  kind  of  causa- 
tion, and  that  was  the  one  which  we  now  regard  miracu- 
lous,— namely  :  personal  and  voluntary  causation.  They 
regarded  even  the  ordinary  course  of  Nature  as  the 
result  of  the  Divine  Will.  The  Earth  and  all  things  had 
been  willed  into  being  by  God's  'volition,  and  still  existed 
and  acted  by  His  will.  He  held  them  as  in  the  "hollow 
of  his  hand,"  and  could  change  the  capricious  will  by 
which  they  had  always  moved  and  existed,  to  suit  his 
mere  pleasure  and  arbitrary  purpose  ;  and  often  did  so 
at  the  solicitation  of  his  favorites.  They  could  hear  or 
read  without  surprise  that  God  had  expressly  raised  up 
Pharaoh  and  hardened  his  heart  to  act  as  he  did,  to  show 
the  direct  and  complete  divine  agency  and  rule  of  God 
in,  and  over,  all  things,  even  over  kings  and  over  the 
very  minds,  dispositions  and  specific  feelings,  thoughts 
and  actions  of  men.  The  only  thing  worthy  of  note,  to 
them,  in  God's  stopping  the  Sun  to  please  Joshua  and  to 
give  him  ampler  time  to  slaughter  his  adversaries,  was 
not  in  the  fact  or  nature  of  the  act,  but  in  the  extent  of 
the  divine  favor  and  condescension  thus  shown  to  His 
Jewish  favorite.  Beyond  this,  it  had  no  special  signifi- 
cance. God  could  as  easily  and  as  consistently  stop  the 
Sun  as  to  keep  it  going :  it  was  but  a  mere  act  of  chang- 
ing a  capricious  will.  They  did  not  confine  this  power 
over  natural  objects  to  their  Creator,  but  believed  that 
other  spirits,  good  and  bad,  had  a  like  power,  subject  to 
the  overruling  power  of  the  Omnipotent,  to  control 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    95 

nature  and  even  to  change  the  original  or  accustomed 
order  established  and  maintained  by  God's  will,  and  to 
thus  thwart  the  divine  purposes.  They  supposed  that 
these  divine  and  spiritual  beings  could  either  take  pos- 
session, and  act  through,  mortal  bodies,  or  could  delegate 
their  powers  over  nature  to  human  beings,  and  imagined 
that  the  persons  so  favored  by  gods  or  demons  could 
exert  these  superhuman  powers  in  the  name  and  by  the 
authority  of  their  principals.  The  devil  and  his  imps, 
and  the  magicians  who  worked  by  their  power  and  ap- 
pointment, could  perform  rs  unquestionable  miracles  as 
those  of  God's  favorites.  The  feats  claimed  to  be  mir- 
acles were  supposed  to  be  merely  superhuman,  not 
supernatural ;  and  men  who  could  perform  feats  of 
thaumaturgy  or  of  hidden  knowledge  or  skill  which  were 
beyond  the  comprehension  or  skill  of  the  observers,  were 
supposed  to  work  by  the  power  of  some  divine  or  demo- 
niac spirit : — that  is,  by  miraculous  or  invisible  agencies. 
Miracle-working  was  the  exertion  of  spiritual  power 
through  human  agency.  The  only  question  of  doubt  or 
difficulty  was  as  to  the  source  and  extent  of  the  power  ; 
— chiefly,  whether  it  were  from  Heaven  or  from  Hell. 
The  rod  of  the  Egyptian  priests  worked  miracles,  only 
Aaron's  rod  worked  greater.  The  early  Christians  no 
more  doubted  the  miracles  of  Simon  Magus  than  they 
did  those  of  Simon  Peter  ;  and  Jesus  himself  acknowl- 
edged the  presence  and  power  of  devils  as  freely  as  he 
claimed  the  power  from  a  still  higher  spiritual  source  to 
"  cast  them  out  "  of  the  devil-possessed,  and  to  o'ermaster 
them  ;  while  the  Jews,  without  caring  to  deny  or  ques- 
tion his  powers;  charged  him  with  being  possessed  of  a 
devil  himself  and  with  working  by  the  power  of  Beelze- 


96  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

bub — the  prince  of  devils.  Beyond  the  possible  utility 
of  a  supposed  miracle,  such  as  that  of  healing,  the  value 
of  miracles  consisted  in  their  supposed  proof  of  their 
worker's  mission  or  claims — of  his  speaking  and  acting 
for  a  higher  power.  The  special  wonder  and  honor  at- 
tending even  the  "  works  "  of  Jesus  were  not  on  account 
of  the  miraculousness  of  the  power  exercised,  but  on 
account  of  its  supposed  and  asserted  divine  origin.  The 
world  was  then  full  of  conceded  miracle-workers,  but 
Jesus,  for  a  while,  excited  special  attention  by  his  pecu- 
liar acts  and  claims,  and  crowds  flocked  around  him, — 
the  sick  to  be  healed,  the  Jew  to  inspect  the  person,  and 
test  the  pretensions  of  their  pretended  Messiah. 


It  is  clear,  from  the  facts  stated,  that  the  men  of 
those  early  times  did  not  so  much  err  from  their  failure 
to  reason,  or  from  their  false  reasoning,  as  they  did  from 
their  false  conceptions  and  lack  of  knowledge  concern- 
ing all  causation.  From  their  own  false  premises  they 
reasoned  well  enough,  and  were  consistent  enough. 
Men  of  our  day,  however,  can  claim  no  such  consistency 
and  rationality  in  accepting  their  conclusions  while  re- 
jecting their  premises.  The  utter  falsity  of  the  notions 
concerning  causation  upon  which  those  early  men 
founded  their  belief  in  miracles  is  now  conceded  ;  and 
logic  and  consistency  required  that  we  should  have 
abandoned  their  conclusions  when  we  discarded  their 
premises.  It  has  certainly  become  manifest  to  all  un- 
biased, competent  minds,  that  the  causative  power  or 


ORIGIN    AND   DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    97 

evolutive  energy  of  the  Universe  is  indestructible  and 
persistent,  and  that,  under  every  set  of  circumstances 
and  conditions,  it  is  definite  and  unalterable  in  character 
and  amount,  and  must,  of  necessity,  prove  adequate  to 
produce  equivalent  and  definite  results  in  certain  law- 
governed  modes ; — in  short,  that  the  Universe  is  a  unique, 
interdependent  whole,  evolving  and  moving  by  persistent 
and  definite  energies  or  natural  causes  or  efficiencies, 
and  in  obedience  to  natural,  universal  and  unchangeable 
laws.  These  new  unquestionable  facts  render  miracles 
an  impossibility.  To  my  own  mind  it  is  equally  apparent 
and  conclusive,  from  the  known  facts,  that  the  tenden- 
cies and  energies  or  efficiencies  by  which  all  known 
Being  is  moved  and  guided,  are  inherent  in  itself  ;  that 
the  Universe  is  self-efficient,  self-supporting,  self-intelli- 
gent, self-evolving  and  self-guiding ;  and  that  no  Being 
is,  or  can  be,  moved  by  either  a  foreign  or  outside  will 
or  energy,  or  be  governed  by  the  inclinations,  prefer- 
ences, laws,  or  modes  of  existence  or  action  of  another 
Being. 

But  there  are  still  other  considerations  which  are 
fatal  to  miracles.  If  God  had  really  created  the  Universe, 
and  willed  and  controlled  all  its  movements,  as  is  con- 
tended by  the  real  believers  in  miracles,  still,  God,  hav- 
ing the  attributes  they  now  claim  for  Him,  neither  could, 
nor  would,  think,  will,  or  act  capriciously  or  changeably  ; 
nor  could,  or  would,  He  create  anything  that  could  do  so, 
or  that  could  act  counter  to  His  own  will,  desire  and 
purpose.  God  would  necessarily  have  some  natural 
mode  of  being,  thinking  and  acting  and  some  definite 
nature  and  proclivities  of  His  own,  and  these  would 
necessarily  be  persistent  and  perfect  in  themselves  and 

7 


98  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

definite  in  their  character,  laws  and  modes  of  manifes- 
tation    under     every    contingency,    and     not    double, 
doubtful  or  variable.     This  much  would  be  an  a  priori 
necessity  to  all  self-existent  Being,  but  more  manifestly 
so  to  an  absolute  and  perfect  God.     It  is  also  manifest 
that  there  could  be  but  one  best  and  perfect   mode    of 
thinking,  concluding  and  acting.     To  alter  or  change,  is 
to  prove  either  that   the   original,  or  that  the  altered, 
thought,'  purpose   or   action   was   wrong   or   imperfect 
Being  different,  they  cannot  both  be  perfect  and  best. 
Whatever,  therefore,  is  perfect  and  best,  a  perfect  Creator 
and  Ruler  would,  in  the  first  place,  provide  for  and  insure. 
Whatever  was  otherwise  than  perfect  and  best  would  be 
impossible  to  Him,  under  all  circumstances,  as  well  as 
to  all  things  emanating  from  Him.     Such  a  Being  could 
not  think,  will,  or  act  arbitrarily  or  capriciously,  of  its 
own  nature  or  volition  ;  nor  could  it  be  induced  to  do 
wrong ;  nor  would  it  need  inducement  to   do  what   is 
right.      Nor   could   or   would   God   create  anything  of 
whose   movements  and  destiny  He  was  not  prescient 
and   assured  ;    and  as    the  contemplated  results  would 
necessarily  be  both  designed  and  absolutely  right,  there 
could  neither  be  need,  nor  possibility  of  change,  since 
every  possible  change  of  His  modes  or  purposes  would 
be  for  the  worst.     To  charge  God  with  such  alterations 
of  inclination,  methods  or  purpose,  or  with  the  creation 
of  anything  which  could  or  would  necessitate  or  require 
an  alteration  of  His  original  design  and  purpose  in  its 
creation,  is  to  derogate  from  His  perfections  and  God- 
hood.     And  again  :  as  the  Universe  is  an  interdependent 
whole,  to  change  the  efficiencies,  laws  and  modes  of  ac- 
tion of  any  one   part,  would  necessitate  an  incalculable 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    99 

amount  of  corresponding  and  counter  changes  to  readjust 
the  general  course  of  Nature,  and  every  such  change 
would  have  to  be  effected  by  a  suitable  change  of  the 
original  and  natural  energies,  laws  and  proclivities  of 
every  particle  of  matter  concerned,  which  would  require 
a  change  of  the  very  nature  of  the  Materials  upon  which 
they  depend.  Such  frequent  "special providences"  and 
solicited  changes,  awarded  to  mere  human  desires  and 
prayers,  would  necessitate  endless  and  inconceivable  al- 
terations and  disturbances  in  the  character  and  evolu- 
tions of  matter,  and  would  render  a  consistent,  orderly 
and  law-governed  course  of  Nature  impossible. 

And  again :  the  causation  and  changes  in  such  a 
Universe  as  ours,  could  not  possibly  be  effected  by  acts 
of  personal  volition.  Personality  implies  individuality  or 
oneness,  and  involves,  not  only  unity  of  being  or  organ- 
ization, but  unity  of  consciousness  ;  and  this  individuality 
and  unity  of  consciousness  involves  a  unity  of  conscious 
thought,  volition  and  mental  action,  with  the  necessary 
result  of  their  seriality  or  singly  successive  order. 
From  the  very  nature  of  personality,  no  individual  or 
person  can  perform  more  than  one  act  of  volition  at  a 
time.  The  infinity  of  personal,  simultaneous  acts  of 
attention  and  volition  which  a  capricious,  or  even  any 
voluntary,  government  and  control  of  the  Universe  would 
require,  would  be  impossible  to  any  one  person,  however 
infinite  or  potent, — would,  indeed,  require  a  special  and 
several  consciousness  and  Will  for  the  government  of 
every  one  of  the  severally-acting  atoms  of  the  Universe. 
It  is  true,  also,  that  personal  consciousness  and  volition 
are,  by  their  very  nature,  a  state  and  action  of  the  indi- 


IOO  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

vidual  mind  or  being  itself,  and  are  therefore  confined  to 
itself.  Mental  states  and  actions  are  wholly  internal  and 
subjective.  No  being  can  be  conscious  of  anything  out- 
side of  itself,  nor  can  any  being  think  or  act  outside  of 
itself  or  where  it  is  not  present.  Nor  is  Will  an  attribute 
of  a  completed  and  perfect  being.  It  implies  mental 
stimulant  and  exertion,  and  a  conflict  between  tendencies 
to  different  actions  or  between  action  and  non-action  : — 
a  state  of  things  which  is  not  possible  with  an  absolute, 
perfect,  self-active  Intelligence.  Will  can  only  be  an 
attribute  of  a  related,  influenced  and  incomplete  being 
with  unsatisfied  desires  and  imperfectly  co-ordinated  and 
adjusted  powers  and  action.  An  absolute,  satisfied  and 
perfect  being  would  necessarily  act  by  the  untrammelled 
and  harmonious  energies,  modes  and  laws  of  its  own 
being,  and  would,  therefore,  exist,  think  and  act  without 
conflict,  doubt,  hesitancy  or  delay,  or  the  necessity  of 
voluntary  determination  or  exertion.  Its  thoughts, 
desires  and  energies  would  continuously  unfold,  and  flow 
into  action  as  intuitively  and  definitely  as  its  own  self- 
conscious  life-action,  requiring  as  little  volition  or  effort 
as  self-consciousness  itself. 


Doubtlessly  there  are  intelligent  men  who  still  think 
they  believe  that  miracles  once  existed,  but  only  under 
the  blinding  influences  of  desire  and  motive — of  policy, 
interest,  inherited  and  trained  feelings  and  proclivities, 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    IOI 

education,  associations,  public  opinion  and  other  motives 
and  aspirations  touching  their  future  life  and  condition 
already  alluded  to.  Their  reason  is  either  silenced,  or 
suborned  and  subsidized,  by  other  influences  than  reason 
and  evidence.  How  miracles  could  have  ever  existed,  or 
why  they  once  existed  and  then  ceased  to  exist,  are 
mysteries  which  they  can  only  accept,  not  comprehend. 
Were  their  reason  allowed  to  play  its  legitimate  part, 
they  could  not  fail  to  perceive  that,  if  miracles  were  ever 
possible,  or  ever  necessary  to  man's  faith  in  the  claims 
of  Jesus,  they  are  still  equally  possible  and  still  more 
necessary  to  the  present  than  to  the  Apostolic  Age.  To 
have  the  assertion  of  unknown  men  as  to  the  existence 
of  ancient  miracles,  or  as  to  certain  "  wonderful  works  " 
performed  before  ignorant  people  2,000  years  ago — 
before  people  who  regarded  what  we  would  deem  super- 
natural  agencies  and  methods  as  the  only  and  natural 
ones,  and  miracles  as  simply  a  superhuman  or  spiritual 
exercise  of  the  only  kind  of  causation — before  people 
who  were  utterly  ignorant  of  our  very  ideas  of  natural 
law  and  natural  causation,  and  who  regarded  all  physical 
and  mental  action  and  changes  as  the  results  of  some 
arbitrary  and  capricious  personal  volition — before  people 
who  believed  that  both  man  and  nature  were  constantly 
subject  to  such  spiritual  caprices  and  changes,  and  that 
they  were  surrounded  by  witches  and  by  persons  filled 
and  "possessed"  by-  any  number  of  living,  speaking 
devils,  from  one  to  thousands, — to  have  the  assertion  of 
all  this  by  some  unknown  man  having  like  intelligence 
and  beliefs,  we  say,  is  literally  no  proof  of  miracles  to  us, 
at  all.  Who  would  now  think  of  trusting  the  testimony 
or  accounts  of  the  ignorant  Catholics  of  Portugal  or 


IO2  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

Brazil  as  to  the  miracles  of  their  professed  Saints  of  our 
own  time,  or  of  the  Mormons  as  to  those  of  their  inspired 
leaders  Smith  and  Young,  or  of  the  modern  Spiritualists 
to  the  "  materialization  "  of  ghosts,  or  of  a  Fetichist  of 
Congo  to  the  miraculous  performances  of  his  fetisch, 
although  they  might  even  personally  know  the  witnesses 
and  believe  them  honest,  and  hear  their  recitals  directly 
from  their  own  lips  ?  The  same  kind  of  miracles  as 
those  recorded  in  the  New  Testament,  even  to  the 
"  resurrection  from  the  dead,"  are  still  claimed  to  be  per- 
formed .now,  and  are  still  believed  in,  and  testified  to,  by 
the  same  class  of  people  who  believed  in,  and  testified  to, 
those  of  the  Apostolic  Age  ;  and  they  always  will  be 
performed  so  long  as  people  can  be  found  who  are 
capable  of  believing  in  them.  But  the  moment  men 
have  developed  beyond  the  point  of  believing  them,  they 
cease  to  exist.  A  miracle  or  miracle-worker  can  neither 
be  engendered,  nor  survive,  in  the  transparent  atmo- 
sphere of  Rationalism.  Persons  having  minds  capable 
of  believing  in  them,  are  incapable  of  being  competent 
witnesses  to  verify  their  existence,  or  to  furnish  to  others 
the  necessary  facts  and  details  to  determine  the  fact  of 
their  existence  for  themselves,  no  matter  how  honest 
they  are.  Their  own  faith  is  not  only  undoubting,  but 
unquestioning,  and  they  neither  know,  nor  apply, 
the  necessary  precautions  and  tests,  nor  secure  the 
necessary  safeguards  against  errors  and  imposition. 
]\tere  appearances  which  are  incomprehensible  or  mar- 
vellous to  them,  is  at  once  set  down  as  miraculous,  and 
they  would  be  amazed,  if  not  indignant,  if  their  un- 
guarded and  "  off-hand "  observations  and  inferences 
were  not  accepted  as  conclusive.  The  very  facts  and 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    1 03 

omissions  which  would  arrest  the  attention  of  a  Ration- 
alist, would  probably  never  attract  their  attention,  or, 
even  if  noticed,  would  be  deemed  unworthy  of  repetition. 
They  take  for  granted,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  the 
very  fact  which  is  to  be  proved ;  and  this  fact  alone  ren- 
ders them  incompetent  judges,  and  therefore  incompetent 
witnesses  and  reporters.  They  are  mere  credulous  on- 
lookers, not  investigators.  They  tell  the  appearances 
which  arrested  their  senses,  or  their  own  inferences  from 
them,  with  reference  to  their  own  views  or  without  any 
reference  at  all  to  their  significance  or  value  ;  and  their 
hearer  or  reader's  best  hope  of  comprehending  the  true 
nature  of  the  performance  lies  in  their  mere  chance 
notice  of  the  details  and  conditions.  They  may  stumble 
into  reporting  a  significant  fact.  Almost  any  evidence, 
even  common  report  or  rumor,  was  sufficient  to  prove  to 
such  men  the  fact  of  what  they  considered  a  miracle. 
To  them,  the  matter  was  a  mere  question  of  veracity. 
To  us  who  regard  a  miracle  in  a  wholly  different  light 
and  as  a  different  thing  from  what  they  did,  the  matter 
of  veracity  itself  sinks  into  insignificance  in  comparison 
with  the  very  question  which  they  take  for  granted, 
namely, — the  very  fact  or  possibility  of  miracles.  A 
body  of  Scientists  would  doubtlessly  regard  the  Gospel 
record  as  unauthentic  or  at  least  as  unverified,  and 
would  certainly  regard  its  recitals,  even  if  authentic 
and  admissible,  as  wholly  incompetent  and  inconclusive 
proof  of  miracles  ;  but  such  questions  would  never  be 
reached  by  such  a  tribunal.  The  evidence  of  a  host  of 
Bayards  and  Solomons  would  be  insufficient  to  prove  a 
miracle  to  such  men.  In  their  sense  and  to  their  minds, 
a  miracle  is  impossible  ;  and  phenomena,  however  in- 


IO4  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

comprehensible  or  marvellous  to  them,  even  if  witnessed 
by  themselves,  would  have  no  tendency  to  convince 
them  of  supernatural  agency  or  capricious  and  law- 
less causation.  The  conception  of  natural  law  and 
causation  was  not  more  impossible  to  the  superstitious 
believers  in  witches  and  devil-possession  of  Capernaum, 
than  is  that  of  miracles  to  a  modern  Scientist ;  and  it 
would  be  more  difficult  for  the  latter  to  believe  in  capri- 
cious or  voluntary  Spiritual  interference  with  the  laws 
and  order  of  nature,  than  for  the  former  to  doubt  it. 
Such  beliefs  are  perfectly  natural  and  legitimate  from  the 
stand-point  and  fundamental  notions  of  the  one  ;  while 
they  are  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  knowledge  and 
convictions  of  the  other.  It  is  no  more  possible  for 
such  men  as  Tyndall,  Huxley,  Helmholtz  and  Du  Bois- 
Raymond  to  realize  or  credit  a  genuine  miracle,  than  it 
is  for  them  to  believe  in  the  old  notion  of  the  daily 
revolution  of  the  Sun  round  the  Earth,  which  the  earlier 
believers  in  miracles  made  it  heresy  to  deny. 


Doubtlessly,  in  the  age  of  Jesus,  there  were  men 
among  the  Jews  sufficiently  enlightened  and  sufficiently 
skeptical  to  have  detected  ordinary  imposture  and  to 
have  transmitted  to  us  more  satisfactory  accounts  of  the 
performances  of  Jesus ;  but  they  neither  witnessed  them^ 
nor  were  permitted  to  witness  them,  although  solicitous 
to  do  so.  Jesus  only  performed  before  certain  persons 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    10$ 

and  classes,  with  restrictions  determined  by  the  special 
nature  of  each  performance.  The  fishermen  and  other 
rabble  or  "  multitudes  "  along  the  shores  of  the  Galilean 
Sea  were  permitted  to  witness  some  of  them  ;  others 
were  reserved  for  the  eyes  of  his  special  and  chosen 
followers  and  witnesses  ;  while  still  others  were  con- 
fided exclusively  to  the  observation  and  testimony  of  the 
favorite  trio  among  the  apostles — Peter,  James  and  John. 
Before  Kings,  Rulers,  Priests  and  the  educated  classes 
he  flatly  and  insultingly  refused  to  perform  at  all  ;  and 
even  the  ignorant  rabble,  save  his  special  and  chosen 
witnesses,  finally  discredited  his  miraculous  pretensions 
and  deserted  him. 


If,  therefore,  the  Messiahship  and  divinity  of  Jesus  re- 
quired to  be  evidenced  by  miracles  to  an  age  so  credulous 
of  such  pretensions  and  powers,  and  still  failed  to  secure 
the  general  belief,  how  much  more  should  we  expect  the 
same  or  even  far  higher  evidences  in  subsequent  critical 
and  rationalistic  ages  ?  Why  should  a  few  men  of  the 
first  age,  alone,  have  these  necessary  proofs  to  secure 
their  adhesion  and  salvation,  while  all  after  generations 
were  compelled  to  depend  upon  doubtful  records  of  mere 
assertions  and  rumors  of  transactions,  among  an  ancient 
and  superstitious  people,  which  failed  to  satisfy  a  great 
majority  of  eye-witnesses  ?  Is  it  the  act  of  a  good  God 
to  decrease  already  insufficient  evidence,  just  in  propor- 
tion to  the  need  of  such  evidence  and  the  difficulty  of  be- 
lieving it,  and  especially  when  there  is  no  possible  reason 


IO6  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

for  such  discontinuance,  and  there  are  scriptural  induce- 
ments for  anticipating  the  reverse  ?  If  it  is  desirable 
for  men  to  believe  in  the  Christ  of  Galilee,  is  it  also  de- 
sirable to  make  it  as  difficult  as  possible  to  believe,  and 
for  it  to  become  more  impossible  with  every  step  in 
their  progressive  intelligence  ?  Was  it  not  enough,  that 
God  should  have  made  the  salvation  of  his  creatures  de- 
pend upon  evidence  which  was,  confessedly  and  at  the 
best,  incredible  to  the  "  wise  and  prudent  "  and  fit  only 
for  the  credulity  of  "  babes,"  without  wilfully  withdraw- 
ing even  such  evidence,  and  leaving  it  to  a  disputed  and 
garbled  record  of  the  sayings,  beliefs  and  hearsays  of 
those  early  and  specially  selected  "  babes  ? "  Surely  this 
is  incredible.  Why,  then,  we  repeat,  have  Protestants 
rejected  all  modern  miracles  and  abandoned  all  notion 
of  their  ever  occurring  again  ?  Must  there  not  be  a 
cause  outside  of  reason  for  this  ?  Is  it  not  clear  that 
Protestants  are  rapidly  developing  beyond  the  point 
where  a  belief  in  miracles  is  possible  ?  Is  it  not  clear 
that  they  now  only  blindly  accept  them  as  a  dernier  resort 
under  the  pressure  of  the  motives  already  considered, 
and  not  with  the  "living  faith"  and  approving  reason  of 
the  fishermen  of  Galilee  ?  Is  it  not  clear  that  the  same 
causes  which  rendered  the  scriptural  doctrines  of  witch- 
craft and  devil-possession,  as  well  as  modern  inspiration, 
prophecy  and  miracles  unbelievable,  must  also  render 
the  equally  irrational  scriptural  miracles  and  inspirations 
equally  incredible  to  all  intelligent  minds,  and  compel 
such  minds  to  relegate  them  to  the  old  lumber-room  of 
worn-out  beliefs  and  superstitions,  to  there  dry-rot 
among  other  once-useful  and  natural,  but  now  cast-off, 
fancies  of  human  infancy  ? 


ORIGIN    AND    DELEVOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    IO/ 

HADES. 

.Q 

Another  of  our  orthodox  beliefs  is,  the  existence  of  a 
Hell — a  specific  place  into  which  the  unbelieving,  the 
unredeemed,  together  with  the  "  nations  that  forget 
God,"  are  cast,  as  a  place  of  eternal  torment  and  pun- 
ishment of  the  most  fiery  and  inconceivable  severity. 
Let  us  examine  the  source  and  value  of  this  notion,  also. 

We  have  already  seen  how  men  come  to  believe  in 
the  primal  fall  and  subsequent  degeneracy  of  their  race 
and  in  their  obligation  and  indebtedness  to  God  as  a  Di- 
vine Sovereign  or  King.  We  have  seen,  also,  how  men 
developed  ever-growing  ideals  of  life,  duty  and  conduct, 
and  how  these  jdeals  necessarily  engendered  dissatisfac- 
tion and  disgust  with  their  existing  lives  and  cond.uct,  as 
well  as  a  profound  conviction  of  the  personal  frailty  and 
wickedness  of  themselves  and  fellows.  Nature's  induce- 
ments and  incitements  of  man  are  like  those  resorted  to 
by  man  himself — are  such  as  are  capable  of  affecting 
man's  nature  and  conduct,  and  consist  of  persuasives 
and  deterrents,  operating  by  way  of  rewards  and  punish- 
ments, and  also  by  the  hopes  and  fears  thereof.  She  is, 
not  only  necessitated  to  use  these  persuasive  and  deter- 
rent methods  in  all  conscious  development,  but  is  com- 
pelled to  use  man's  own  imperfect  nature  and  ideas  as 
her  instruments, — especially  in  her  development  of  his 
moral  nature.  To  secure  the  continuance  of  the  species 
and  its  physical  development,  she  had  been  compelled  to 
highly  develop  the  selfish  nature  and  proclivities  of  the 
individuals  composing  it.  Out  of  this  absorbing  selfish- 
ness she  was  then  compelled  to  evolve  the  means  of 


IO8  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

elevating  man  to  the  higher  plane  of  the  Unselfish. 
The  Selfish  she  finds  to'be  a  useful  means  for  urging  to 
those  associations  and  relations  which  will  engender  the 
sympathies  underlying  the  unselfish  and  moral  nature. 
But  she  also  finds  that  this  selfish  nature  is,  primarily, 
largely  antagonistic  to  the  moral  nature  she  would  de- 
velop, and  that  she  is  compelled  to  use  stringent  cor- 
rectives and  restraints  to  check  and  control  it.  Con- 
sequently we  find  the  conscience,  the  sense  of  responsi- 
bility and  duty,  the  burning  aspirations  and  growing 
ideals  engendered  by,  and  during,  the  processes  of  moral 
development,  not  only  operating  as  potent  stimulants  to 
moral  progress,  but  impelling  men  to  use  all  the  coercive 
and  punitive  means  in  their  own  power  to  deter  them- 
selves from  moral  derelictions.  But  it  early  became  ap- 
parent to  developing  people,  of  ungovernable  natures, 
that  the  indolence,  rapacity,  violence  and  fraud  flowing 
from  Selfishness  should  be,  and  deserved  to  be,  put 
down  by  the  utmost  fear  and  punishment.  These  pun- 
ishments were,  at  first,  purely  physical  and  temporary. 
But  the  experiences  of  many  races  soon  demonstrated 
that  the  hopes  of  escaping  detection  and  of  avoiding 
either  conviction  or  the  effects  of  conviction,  so  far 
weakened  the  fears  inspired  by  human  laws  and  penal- 
ties as  to  render  them  insufficient  motives  to  restrain 
men's  brutal,  passionate  and  selfish  natures.  Tempta- 
tion was  potent  and  present,  the  punishment  was  remote 
and  problematical ;  and  rude  and  unreflecting  minds 
gave  way  under  the  more  powerful  and  immediate  pres- 
sure. Nor  were  early  men  capable  of  appreciating,  much 
less  of  carrying  out,  such  maxims  as  that — "  Honesty  is 
the  best  policy,"  and  "  Virtue  is  its  own  reward;"  nor 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS. 

were  they  satisfied  with  the  known  rewards  achieved  in 
those  days  by  the  more  gentle,  peaceful  and  sympathetic 
of  their  race.  Clearly,  something  else  was  necessary  to 
curb  such  undeveloped  natures — some  fear  of  a  punish- 
ment which  was  as  sure  as  it  was  tertible.  This  desired 
deterrent  was  found  in  a  belief  in  a  divine  King  and 
Judge  and  divine  laws  with  endless  punishments — in 
divine  judgments  which  were  inexorable  and  a  divine 
Ruler  and  Judge  whose  all-seeing  eye  penetrated  the 
very  secrets  of  all  hearts,  and  permitted  no  possible 
avoidance  of  detection,  whose  infinite  wisdom  and  ex- 
acting justice  permitted  no  chance  of  escaping  convic- 
tion, and  whose  omnipotent  arm  forbid  all  hope  of 
escaping  the  eternal  penalty  decreed.  This  spiritual 
remedy  served  to  powerfully  supplement  the  restraints 
of  earthly  penalties  by  enlisting  man's  ignorance  and 
superstition  in  aid  of  his  own  moral  development,  and 
thus  overawing  his  brutality  and  selfishness  by  his  fears 
of  the  Unknown  and  by  horrors  only  limited  by  the 
failure  of  the  powers  of  his  own  imagination. 


A  confirmation  of  this  view  will  be  found  in  the  fact, 
that  there  is  a  striking  correspondence  between  both 
the  temporal  and  spiritual  codes  of  various  peoples  and 
between  both  codes  and  their  own  characters  and  the  re- 
straint their  natures  call  for,  as  well  as  between  their 
own  degrees  of  severity  at  different  times  and  for  differ- 
ent offences.  It  is  the  wicked  and  frail  who  feel  the 
need  of  the  severest  restraints  and  who  concoct  the- 


HO  JESUS   AND   RELIGION. 

most  stringent  and  cruel  remedies.  The  codes  of  bar- 
baric peoples  are  proverbially  cruel  and  bloody,  while 
the  pirate  and  bandit  knows  no  remedy  but  instant  death. 
We  find,  also,  that  the  criminal  codes  of  peoples  become 
mollified  as  they  become  law-abiding  and  tractable. 
There  has  been  a  growing  tendency  in  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race  to  abolish  the  death  penalty,  even  for  the  last  and 
most  abhorrent  of  crimes,  while  scarcely  more  than  a 
century  ago  there  were  over  a  hundred  crimes  punish- 
able with  death  in  England.  And  yet  these  brutal  pen- 
alties were  enacted  and  supported  by  the  people  them- 
selves. The  spiritual  codes  of  peoples  exhibit  the  same 
confirmatory  correspondence,  at  least  where  they  are 
original.  The  unseen  penalties  of  such  codes  are  found 
to  bear  a  direct  relation  to  the  visible  ones  and  to  the 
character  of  the  people  to  be  influenced.  They  are  a 
reflex  of  the  moral  nature  of  the  people  who  invented 
and  support  them.  Partially  developed  peoples  who 
have  mild  and  tractable  natures  never  originate  beliefs 
in  endless  torments.  It  is  only  the  more  fiery,  obstinate 
and  ungovernable  races  who  need,  and  therefore  resort 
to,  these  terrible  penalties  and  appalling  fears.  This 
correspondence  is  further  exemplified  in  the  progressive 
amelioration  or  "  toning  down  "  of  these  fiery  spiritual 
codes  as  peoples  become  moral  and  humane.  With  the 
progress  of  civilization  and  development  the  more  cruel 
features  of  such  codes  are  gradually  ignored  and  become 
"dead  letters"  on  the  statute  book — become  rather  re- 
membered and  undisputed  dogmas  than  realized  beliefs. 
As  men  rise  entirely  above  the  plane  of  Superstition, 
such  beliefs  become  impossible  to  them — become  absurd, 
in  every  point  of  view,  as  facts,  whatever  may  have  been 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    Ill 

their  utility  as  beliefs.  They  learn  to  regard  the  Uni- 
verse as  a  unique,  law-governed  whole,  and  God  as  the 
all-embracing  All-Father,  and  cease  to  look  upon  the 
Divine  Personality  either  as  a  dreaded  King  or  as  an 
inexorable  Judge  and  Executioner.  Such  minds  are 
compelled,  not  only  to  discard  all  notion  of  such  a 
place  as  Hell,  but  all  idea  of  future  punishment  and,  in- 
deed, of  any  divine  punishment  of  a  retributive  kind,  as 
well  as  the  whole  idea  of  man's  fall  and  retrogression, 
and  his  penal  indebtedness  to  God  and  all  the  crude  no- 
tions based  upon  it.  They  cannot  but  perceive,  that 
such  conceptions  are  purely  of  human  origin,  and  savor 
of  their  crude  paternity  ;  that  this  whole  chain  of  con- 
ceptions is  at  once  incompatible  with  a  law-governed 
Universe,  a  libel  upon  the  beneficent  All-Father,  and  a 
purposeless  cruelty  and  vindictiveness  to  the  condemned 
spirit,  alike  useless  to  it  or  to  God,  and  a  bar  to  the 
happiness  and  enjoyment  of  the  redeemed  friends  and 
relatives  of  the  lost  soul.  They  can  recognize  the  util- 
ity of  the  belief  in  a  hell,  and  the  fears  it  inspires,  to 
rude  races  who  can  entertain  such  crude  beliefs  ;  while 
they  perceive  that  the  fact  of  endless  torments  would 
be  at  once  useless,  impossible  and  diabolical.  They 
perceive  that  the  originators  of  such  beliefs  have  been 
inspired  by  the  needs  of  mans  nature  in  this  life,  rather 
than  by  any  rational  and  appreciative  conception  of  God 
and  of  his  relations  to  his  creatures,  or  of  the  condition 
of  man  in  a  future  life.  Doubtlessly  there  were  many 
things  observed  in  natural  evolution  which,  viewed  from 
an  ignorant  and  human  stand-point,  tended  to  give  early 
men  low  and  mistaken  notions  of  God's  justice  and  ben- 
eficence, which  shaped  their  notions  of  his  designs  and 


112  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

methods.  Such  was  their  conception  of  Heavenly  jus- 
tice that  it  required  the  invention  and  the  intervention  of 
a  divine  equity  or  Heavenly  Chancery  to  supplement  and 
mollify  its  decrees — God's  mercy  suspending  and  revers- 
ing the  laws  and  decrees  of  his  own  justice  : — as  if  God's 
attributes  could  conflict,  or  as  if  his  justice  could  be 
less  than  exactly  right,  or  his  mercy  more  than,  or  dif- 
ferent from,  what  was  exactly  right !  No  doubt  the 
hereditary  effects  of  sin  or  of  breaches  of  natural  law, 
entailing  misery  on  innocent  offspring  "  to  the  tenth 
generation,"  the  inexorability  of  natural  law  and  the 
apparent  inadequacy  and  unfairness  of  the  earthly 
punishments  for  immoralities  and  of  the  distribution  of 
the  rewards  for  virtue,  aided  in  engendering  the  idea  of 
future  rewards  and  punishments. 


The  fact  is,  that  men's  hells,  like  their  heavens,  are 
but  reflexes  of  their  own  natures.  They  are  born  of 
their  own  aspirations  and  needs,  and  are  continually 
modified  to  suit  them.  They  are  self-adjusted  stimulants 
to  their  progress.  Man's  persistent  desires  and  needs 
will  always  compel  some  suitable  satisfaction  and  re- 
sponse in  his  own  beliefs.  If  those  desires  and  needs 
demand  aid  or  assurances  from  the  Invisible  World, 
such  demand  ever  brings  a  supply,  by  means  of  dreams, 
visions  and  revelations.  And  so  long  as  the  assurances 
received  correspond  with  the  needs  and  desires  calling 
them  forth,  neither  their  irrationality  nor  unreliability 
will  deter  the  mass  of  mankind  from  entertaining  and 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    113 

cherishing  them.  Man  cannot  live  and  act  without  be- 
liefs, and  must  form  such  as  are  adequate  and  possible 
to  his  nature  and  condition.  Nature  is  necessarily  com- 
pelled to  be  wholly  self-efficient  and  self-evolving,  and 
the  peoples  of  primitive  ages  could  have  had  no  kind 
missionaries  or  patient  and  enlightened  instructors  to 
enlighten,  aid  and  stimulate  them,  but  were  compelled 
to  blindly  stumble  forward  by  their  own  lights  and  en- 
ergies,— correcting  one  imperfection  by  means  of  others 
and  jostling  themselves  and  their  conduct  into  shape 
and  guidance  by  such  motive-impulses  and  desires  as 
they  possessed,  and  with  such  constructions  of  Nature, 
such  notions  of  causation  and  God,  and  such  compro- 
mises of  opinions  and  desires  as  were  then  possible  to 
them.  Truth,  for  its  own  sake,  was  a  matter  of  indiffer- 
ence. That  their  notions  should  have  been,  not  only 
selfish,  but  provisional  and  erroneous,  and  have  consti- 
tuted a  reflex,  not  of  the  facts,  but  of  the  imperfect 
minds  and  the  necessities  which  demanded  and  inspired 
them,  was  a  necessity  founded  in  the  very  nature  of  pro- 
gressive development,  since  progressive  improvement 
implies  previous  imperfection  or  error. 

No  better  proof  and  exemplification  of  this  self- 
adaptive  law  of  human  nature  could  be  required  than 
the  existence  and  the  various  phases  of  this  same  belief 
in  a  hell  and  future  punishment.  For,  independent  of 
all  other  inconsistencies  and  absurdities  which  the  belief 
involves,  the  true  scriptural  idea  of  torturing  an  immor- 
tal soul — an  indestructible  and  unconsumable  "  spiritual 
body  " — by  fire,  is  absurdly  impossible ;  since  the  pain 
caused  by  fire  is  a  result  of  the  change  or  disorganization 


114  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

effected  by  the  heat.  An  indestructible  body  is  neces- 
sarily impervious  to  pain,  because  it  cannot  suffer  that 
disintegration  or  derangement  of  parts  which  is  the 
source  of  pain  and  which  all  pain  implies.  Besides,  were 
it  possible  to  predicate  pain  of  such  a  body,  a  perpetual 
state  and  condition  that  were  even  once  painful,  would 
gradually  become  less  and  less  so  until  it  ultimately 
became  the  accustomed  life-mode  of  such  being.  Pain  is 
not  only  confined,  by  its  very  origin  and  nature,  to  the 
disorganizable  and  mortal,  but  is  also  temporary  in  its 
duration.  The  very  state  which  is  painful,  if  not  fatal, 
must  some  time  cease  to  be  felt  as  painful.  Nor  is  this 
doctrine  less  absurd  in  making  the  Devil  the  willing 
instrument  in  torturing  his  own  followers,  and  in  depict- 
ing him  as  desirous  of  inveigling  men  into  eternal 
suffering  for  their  very  loyalty  and  obedience  to  himself 
and  for  the  sole  end  of  carrying  out  the  decrees  and 
purposes  of  that  God  against  whom  he  has  rebelled  and 
wages  eternal  and  spiteful  war !  Were  not  these  child- 
ish notions  the  make-shifts  of  childish  races  ?  Is  not 
such  a  being  and  such  a  state  of  things  unrealizable  to 
the  developed  mind  ?  As  human  nature  ceases  to  need 
the  restraints  of  such  superstitious  fears,  and  human  in- 
telligence supplies  higher  inducements  and  incentives  to 
devotion  and  morality,  must  not  the  entire  belief  in  a 
Hell  gradually  fade  out  of  the  minds  of  all  men  ? 


ORIGIN    AND    DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS.    11$ 

We  have  now  briefly  considered  the  origin,  progress 
and  value  of  our  more  important  popular  religious  beliefs. 
In  doing  this,  we  have  found  that  man's  religious  notions 
are  at  once  a  product  and  a  means  of  his  development, 
and  that,  although  born  of  his  needs  and  aspirations, 
they  gradually  conform  themselves  to  his  psychical 
development  and  his  conceptions  of  causation  so  far  as 
may  be  consistent  or  compatible  with  his  fundamental 
aspirations  for  immortality  and  happiness.  We  shall 
find,  in  the  end,  that  all  conflict  between  this  imperish- 
able aspiration  of  man  and  his  developed  reason  must 
end  in  a  union,  in  which  the  aspiration  will  .rest  satis- 
fied in  the  assurances  and  conviction  furnished  by 
Reason.  We  have  seen  that,  prior  to  this  ultimate  con- 
viction and  satisfaction,  the  course  and  order  of  religious 
development  have  been  those  of  a  law-governed  process 
of  evolution,  and  that  they  have  been  substantially  the 
same  among  all  naturally  developed  peoples,  only 
exhibiting  -the  necessary  differences  incident  to  differ- 
ences of  character  and  conditions  and  of  their  intellec- 
tual, moral,  political,  social  and  commercial  developments 
and  relations.  We  have  also  seen  how  Reason  has  been 
warped  by  inclination,  and  compelled  to  pay  homage  to 
Need  and  Desire,  and  how  its  progress  has  been- retarded 
by  men's  veneration  for  the  Old, — by  their  ascription  of 
sanctity  and  infallibility  to  ancient  writings,  and  by  the 
superstitious  hopes  and  fears  such  writings  have 
inspired ;  and  how  Reason  and  Science  are  alike  impo- 
tent as  antagonists  to  the  fundamental  beliefs  in  the 
existence  of  a  God  and  of  the  existence  and  immortality 
of  the  soul.  We  have  seen  how  Reason  and  Fact  have 
progressively  triumphed  over  the  errors  and  supersti- 


Il6  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

tions  of  the  past,  until  they  stand  before. the  last  of  the 
old  and  feeble  ramparts  which  have  been  thrown  around 
these  invincible  beliefs — invincible  because  resting  di- 
rectly upon  the  fundamental  and  true.  We  have  seen 
that  it  has  become  apparent  that  their  further  triumph 
must  be  won,  not  by  ignoring  religion  or  the  true  signif- 
icance of  the  fundamental  life-aspiration  which  under- 
lies all  development,  but  by  wresting  them  from  the 
grasp  of  Superstition  by  rationally  satisfying  them. 
Until  this  is  done,  it  matters  not  how  irrational  and 
feeble  may  be  their  old  supports,  men  will  still  cling  to 
them,  or  invent  new  ones,  even  though  they  floated,  for 
their  sole  support,  upon  an  abyss  of  inanity.  But  once 
render  man's  supernatural  supports  no  longer  necessary 
to  him,  by  giving  him  natural  and  rational  ones,  and 
they  will  sink  forever  into  the  inane  void  upon  which 
they  have  ever  rested,  and  Rational  Religion  will  right- 
fully succeed  to.  the  dominion  which  Supernaturalism 
has  so  long  provisionally  held.  Supernaturalism  was 
born  of  Fetichism,  and  its  sole  rational  basis  has  ever 
been  the  childish,  fetichistic  reason  from  which  it  sprung. 
This  puerile  and  flimsy  base  has  long  been  honeycombed 
by  Time  and  riddled  by  the  shots  of  Rationalism,  until  it 
remains  '  but  an  unsightly  thing  of  shreds  and  tags. 
Supernaturalism  no  longer  really  supports  either  Religion 
or  itself,  but  clings  pendent  to  the  imperishable  aspira- 
tion which  supports  them  both  : — clouding  the  fair  face 
of  Religion  like  the  dead,  but  unshed,  skin  of  the 
serpent. 


ORIGIN    AND   DEVELOPMENT    OF    RELIGIOUS    BELIEFS. 

When  men,  instead  of  being  taught  that  the  very 
Substance  of  the  Universe  is  base  and  evil,  and  that 
Nature  is  perverted  and  at  war  with  God  and  itself, 
shall  be  shown  that  the  essential  Being  ccrmposing  the 
Universe  is  the  one  intelligent  and  self-sufficient  Exist- 
ence,-— which  is,  in  itself,  altogether  ineffable  and  tran- 
scendental ;  and  that  the  known  Universe,  which  is  so 
maligned  and  derided,  is  the  sole  manifestation  of  the 
divine  All-Father — that  it  constitutes  a  unique  and 
eternally-self-evolving  whole,  whose  every  form  and  pro- 
duct is  divine  in  origin  and  purpose, — whose  every  pro- 
cess is  infinitely  wise  and  absolutely  necessary  for  the 
ends  designed, — and  whose  real  and  ultimate  purposes 
and  ends  are  divinely  perfect  and  beneficent, — in  short, 
that  the  Absolute  is  to  be  found  in  the  one  Reality  which 
is,  and  that  the  absolute  Good  is  to  be  found  in  Nature's 
actual  processes  and  ends, — the  absolutely  Necessary  in 
her  means, — and  the  absolutely  Wise  in  her  processes 
and  methods, — and  not  in  their  own  short-sighted, 
ever-changing  and  delusive  conceptions  of  the  Divine, 
True  and  Good,  which  are  born  of  their  own  relative  and 
mortal  feelings  ideas  and  desires  : — when  they  are  shown 
(as  we  aver  they  rationally  can  be),  that  all  evil  is  rela- 
tive and  temporary,  and  constitutes  a  necessary  part  of 
the  agencies  and  processes  of  Absolute  Beneficence  in 
securing  the  primal  evolution,  the  development,  and  the 
final  and  progressive  beatitude  and  intellectual  progress 
of  immortal  Souls — when  these  things  shall  be  made 
rationally  manifest,  we  say  (as  we  repeat  they  can  be,) 
then  Supernaturalism,  in  all  its  forms,  will  perish  from 
sheer  inanition. 


Il8  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

Thus,  we  have  found  our  moral  and  religious  facul- 
ties and  our  moral  and  religious  ideas  and  beliefs  to  be 
natural  progressive  developments,  having  a  course  and 
progress  running  substantially  parallel  and  pari  passu 
with  those  of  man's  intellectual,  political  and  social 
development,  each  being  a  legitimate  part  of  human 
evolution, — reciprocally  aiding  and  correcting  each  other, 
and  each  born  of,  and  borne  up  by,  the  same  great  fun- 
damental life-aspiration  underlying  all  conscious  develop- 
ment, and  constituting  the  tap-root  and  trunk  of  the 
great,  wide-branching  motive-tree  of  life.  It  remains  to 
be  seen  whether  this  same  aspiration  for  ever-continued, 
and  higher,  life  has  developed  further  fruit  on  this  same 
branch  of  Supernaturalism — whether,  indeed,  it  does  not 
constitute  the  very  tap-root  and  basic  fact  or  vital  sup- 
port of  Christianity  itself,  as  it  has  been  shown  to  be  of 
older  religions. 


THE    TAP-ROOT    OR    BASIC    FACT    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE    TAP-ROOT    OR    BASIC    FACT    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

WHAT  was  the  essential  idea  which  distinguished 
Christianity  from  other  religious  developments  existing 
at  its  advent,  and  which  secured  its  propagation  and 
popular  reception  ?  It  could  not  have  been  its  moral 
doctrines,  since  it  propounded  none  which  had  not 
already  engaged  the  attention  of  mankind  long  before 
the  birth  of  Jesus.  Nor  could  any  mere  reformatory 
code  of  morals  or  set  of  moral  ideas  have  inspired  the 
enthusiasm  and  devotion,  or  secured  the  zeal,  self-sacri- 
fice and  persistence,  exhibited  in  the  history  of  Christian- 
ity. In  fact  the  periods  of  her  greatest  zeal  and  success 
have  been  signalized  by  anything  but  high  moral  notions 
or  conduct.  Nor  could  it  have  been  the  introduction  of 
new  theological  dogmas  or  theories,  for  it  avowedly 
claims  to  be  only  an  extension  of  Jewish  Theology  and  a 
fulfilment  of  Jewish  prophecies,  and  it  accepts,  entire, 
the  Jewish  Scriptures  ;  and  we  know  that  early  Chris- 
tians claimed  to  be  in  harmony  in  their  theological 
beliefs  with  their  Jewish  brethren,  save  as  to  Jesus. 
Nor  could  it  have  been  new  forms  or  rituals,  for  neither 
Jesus  nor  his  apostles  ordained  or  established  any. 


I2O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

Nor  could  it  have  been  the  mere  doctrine  of  a  future 
life  or  a  belief  in  its  rewards  and  punishments,  since  the 
hope  and  fear  of  these  had  long-  influenced  men  ;  and 
were  then  controlling  doctrines' and  beliefs  among  the 
Pharisees.  Certainly  there  were  a  number  of  ancillary 
and  subordinate  motives  and  stimulants  that  gave  vital- 
ity and  vigor  to  the  primitive  Church,  as  well  as  many 
existing  conditions  favoring  its  development.  But  in 
this  great  revolutionary  movement,  as  in  all  others,  there 
must  have  been  some  consideration  which  was  essential 
and  fundamental — something  which  constituted  the 
back-bone  of  the  movement  and  without  which  it  could 
not  have  existed.  What  was  this  essentiality?  Let  us 
venture  to  assert  that  it  was  not  a  new  idea  or  even  a 
new  emotion  at  all,  which  gave  vitality  to  Christianity. 
It  was  an  accredited  fact,  and  not  an  idea  or  emotion, 
which  inspired  the  founders  of  Christianity — a  fact  sup- 
posed to  give  practical  and  firm  assurance  to  an  old  idea 
and  a  long  cherished  hope  :— no  less  an  idea  and  hope, 
in  fact,  than  that  of  eternal  life  and  happiness,  born  of 
the  fundamental  life-aspiration  of  the  Soul.  Christianity 
did  not  add  even  a  new  feature  or  phase  to  these  ideas, 
nor  was  such  an  addition  the  "  need  of  the  time."  What 
she  really  offered  constituted  the  fundamental  spiritual 
need  of  her  Converts, — namely :  a  new  and  higher  as- 
surance— a  practical  proof  of  a  future  life,  and  a  sure 
mode  for  their  escaping  the  consequences  of  their  earthly 
sins  and  securing  endless  beatitude.  Men  already  be- 
lieved in  a  future  life  and  in  their  power  to  make  it  a 
happy  one  by  obedience  to  divine  law,  and  there  had 
been  many  professed  restorations  of  human  bodies  to 
life  after  their  apparent  death, — priorto  the  restoration 


THE    TAP-ROOT    OR    BASIC    FACT    OF    CHRISTIANITY.   121 

of  Jesus  ;  but  all  these  were,  or  might  have  been,  natural 
restorations  from  seeming  death,  or  might  have  been  ef- 
fected through  the  intervention  of  human  agencies,  and 
not  by  the  spiritual  power  of  the  dead  themselves  or  by 
the  direct  intervention  of  God  in  a  manifest  case  of  ac- 
tual and  real  death.  A  body  might  be  restored  from 
seeming  death  by  the  agency  of  the  physician  or  ma- 
gician, but  so  could  a  dog  or  dead  fly, — things  which  had 
no  souls.  What  was  needed  was  a  case  of  unquestioned 
actual  death,  and  an  exhibition  of  the  voluntary  return 
of  the  soul  to  the  body — a  self-resurrection,  or  the  return 
of  a  witness  from  the  dead  by  the  power  of  God,  who 
should  bear  witness  to  the  desired  truths  under  the 
surety  and  sanction  of  this  direct  divine  endorsement. 


This,  then,  was  what  was  needed  and  demanded  by 
the  fundamental  aspiration  of  the  souls  of  men  as  they 
stood  developed  in  the  days  of  Jesus ;  and  this  was  the 
prime  fact  which  the  founders  and  propagators  of  Chris- 
tianity offered.  The  essential  and  basic  fact  of  Chris- 
tianity was  the  asserted  resurrection  of  Jesus  from  the 
dead.  Christianity  was  born,  not  when  Jesus  exclaimed 
on  the  cross,  "  It  is  finished,"  but  when  he  emerged  alive 
from  the  sepulchre  of  Joseph  of  Aramathea.  In  this 
instance  of  restored  vitality  it  was  assumed  there  could 
have  been  neither  doubt  of  actual  death,  nor  the  exercise 
of  human  power  or  skill.  It  must,  then,  have  been  a 
divine  act  either  by  himself  or  by  God.  If  performed 
by  himself — as  was  believed — it  proved,  not  only  that 


122  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

the  Soul,  which  had  returned  to  the  body  on  the  third 
day  after  death,  had  continued  to  exist  during  this  interim 
of  death,  but  also  verified  his  claim  to  a  divine  nature, 
power  and  mission.  If  his  return  to  mortal  life  were 
by  the  direct  power  of  God,  it  did  not  the  less  show  that 
the  soul  had  survived  the  body,  and  to  give  a  divine 
sanction  to  the  testimony  of  Jesus  as  to  the  immortality 
of  the  Soul.  Thus  it  was  assumed  that,  in  any  event, 
the  resurrection  of  Jesus  gave  an  assurance  of  immor- 
tality and  of  his  own  divine  endorsement  by  God  him- 
self. That  he  was  executed, — Did  not  all  Jerusalem  bear 
witness  ?  That  he  was  seen  alive  in  the  flesh  on  the 
third  day  thereafter,  and  on  numerous  other  occasions, — 
Could  not  the  Apostles,  and,  as  Paul  declares,  five  hun- 
dred other  witnesses,  bear  testimony  ?  Was  not  here 
the  proof,  then,  of  what  man  had  so  long  hoped  for  and 
believed,  and  had  so  earnestly  yearned  to  know,  as  well 
as  that  hoped-for  Saviour  and  promised  Messiah  who 
was  to  become  the  Solicitor  of  Humanity  to  secure  their 
bankrupt  discharge  in  the  Courts  of  Heaven, — or  better 
still,  a  receipt  in  full  by  actual  payment  in  "divine 
blood  "  from  the  sacrificial  offering  on  the  Cross  ? 


That  this  supposed  resurrection  from  the  dead  by 
Jesus  was  the  pivot  upon  which  the  whole  Christian 
movement  rested  and  turned  is  not  a  matter  of  doubt. 
We  are  left  in  no  uncertainty  as  to  the  fact  that  the  fol- 
lowers of  Jesus  had  no  previous  conception  of  the  re- 
ligious movement  which  was  set  afoot  shortly  after  the 
alleged  resurrection,  but  had,  up  to  the  last,  expected  to 


THE    TAP-ROOT    OR    BASIC    FACT    OF    CHRISTIANITY.    123 

become  official  partakers  in  the  Messianic  reign  of  him 
whom  they  had  hailed  and  heralded  into  Jerusalem  as 
"  King  of  the  Jews."  They  were  wholly  unexpectant  of 
his  reappearance  after  the  crucifixion,  and  were  utterly 
surprised  by,  and  incredulous  of,  his  actual  return  ; — some 
of  them  doubting  his  identity  even  to  the  last.  Without 
this  return  of  Jesus,  it  is  certain  that  his  followers  would 
have  quietly  returned  to  their  ordinary  pursuits  as  soon  as 
their  fear  of  the  Jews  permitted  them  to  leave  their  place 
of  concealment.  The  controlling  nature  of  this  fact  is  not 
left  to  inference  either  by  the  narrative  of  the  events  or 
the  declarations  of  the  Apostles.  St.  Paul,  in  writing 
to  the  Corinthians  (i  Cor.  xv.,  v.  14-20)  says  :  "  And 
if  Christ  be  not  risen,  then  is  our  preaching  vain,  and 
your  faith  is  also  vain.  Yea,  and  we  are  found  false 
witnesses  of  God  ;  because  we  have  testified  of  God 
that  he  raised  up  Christ :  whom  he  raised  not  up,  if  so 
be  that  the  dead  rise  not.  For  if  the  dead  rise  not,  then 
is  not  Christ  raised  :  And  if  Christ  be  not  raised,  your 
faith  is  vain  ;  ye  are  yet  in  your  sins.  Then  they  also 
which  are  fallen  asleep  in  Christ  are  perished.  If  in 
this  life  only  we  have  hope  in  Christ,  we  are  of  all  men 
most  miserable."  Here  it  will  be  seen  that  this  intel- 
lectual Chief  of  the  Apostles,  and  real  founder  of  the 
Church,  expressly  and  explicitly  confirms  the  view  we 
have  taken.  He  here  explicitly  declares  that  all  their 
preaching  and  all  their  faith  were  alike  vain  if  Jesus  did 
not  arise  from  the  dead  by  the  power  of  God,  and  he  in- 
sists that  the  existence  of  the  departed  dead  and  the 
general  resurrection  of  mankind  are  dependent  upon 
that  of  Jesus — that  they  are  mutually  dependent  and 
imply  each  other :  if  the  man  Jesus  did  resurrect,  then 


124  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

there  is  a  resurrection  for  man  ;  if  he  did  not  resurrect 
then  there  is  no  resurrection  for  man ;  we  assert  that 
he  did  resurrect,  and  therefore  affirm  the  resurrection 
and  future  life  of  man,  and  are  the  most  miserable  of 
men  if  we  are  deceived  in  this.  Such  was  the  reason- 
ing. Paul  claimed  no  new  idea  or  new  morality  as  the 
basis  of  his  faith  and  preaching,-  but  bases  Christianity, 
and  stakes  its  pretensions,  upon  a  single  fundamental 
fact.  If  this  fact  was  true,  it  was  of  priceless  moment ; 
if  untrue,  their  religion  or  gospel  was  worthless, — nay,  de- 
leterious. Here,  then,  we  have  the  highest  possible  as- 
surance that  the  same  aspiration  which  we  have  found 
to  have  underlain  all  previous  religious  developments, 
also  inspired  the  inauguration  of  Christianity,  and  that 
the  essential  offering  of  the  new  sect  to  Humanity  was 
the  evidence  of  an  asserted  fact,  constituting  a  reliable 
assurance  to  the  primal  and  persistent  aspiration  of 
man ;  and  that  upon  the  truth  of  this  fact  depended  its 
entire  value.  And  while  the  matter  was  indubitably 
clear  without  Paul's  authority,  it  is  gratifying  to  have 
this  positive  endorsement  from  the  man  who  knew  most 
of,  and  did  most  for,  Christianity.  Paul  goes  so  far, 
indeed,  (in  Rom.  i. — vs.  3,  4,)  as  to  directly  declare 
that,  although  J  esus  was  the  son  of  David  according  to 
the  flesh,  he  was  "  declared  to  be  the  Son  of  God,  with 
power,  according  to  the  spirit  of  holiness,  by  the  resurrec- 
tion from  the  dead."  That  is  to  say,  that,  owing  to  his 
resurrection,  he  was  regarded,  in  a  moral  sense  and  in 
point  of  power,  as  a  son  of  God — as  divine.  Thus 
clearly  making  the  conception  and  declaration  of  his 
divinity  to  have  arisen  solely  out  of  the  fact  of  his  res- 
urrection from  the  dead. 


THE    TAP-ROOT    OR    BASIC    ROOT    OF    C11R1STIANITV.    12$ 

The  essential  question  touching  the  claims  of  Chris- 
tianity, by  its  own  showing,  then,  is  as  to  the  truth  of 
the  asserted  fact  of  the  actual  resurrection  of  Jesus 
from  the  dead.  If  the  testimony,  therefore,  should  prove 
adverse  to  this  fact,  or  even  inconclusive  of  its  truth, 
upon  a  full,  rational  and  candid  consideration  of  it,  such 
a  result  would  be  wholly  fatal  to  the  claims  of  Chris- 
tianity. It  may  have  a  thousand  vulnerable  points,  but 
a  wound  here  is  acknowledgedly  fatal.  But  why  desire 
to  re-open  the  question,  or  seek  to  shake  the  popular  her- 
editary belief  in  this  cherished  fact,  and  especially  when 
the  Author  is  as  profoundly  convinced  of  the  fact  of  our 
psychical  immortality  as  were  Paul  or  Jesus  ?  Were  the 
result  to  cast  a  doubt  upon  this  fundamental  truth  or  upon 
the  general  morality  inculcated  by  either  Jesus  or  Paul — 
much  of  which  is  so  admirable — there  certainly  would  in- 
deed be  little  motive  beyond  the  mere  love  of  truth,  while 
there  would  be  many  dissuading  motives.  But  this  is 
not  the  sole  motive,  nor  are  those  the  proposed  results. 
The  fact  of  man's  immortality  is  happily  beyond  human 
control ;  nor  will  man  cease  to  aspire  to,  and  believe  in 
it,  whatever  may  be  the  fate  of  any  or  all  of  the  forms  of 
religion  which  now  affirm  it.  The  ideas,  methods  and 
processes,  however,  which  are  engendered  and  used  in 
the  progress  of  man's  efforts  to  obtain  information,  and 
to  secure  assurances  in  this  matter,  not  only  progres- 
sively differ,  but  are  such  as  become  noxious  and  ob- 
structive to  man's  further  development.  And  while  St. 
Paul  very  clearly  discerned  the  true  fundamental  as- 
piration which  underlay  his  own  movement,  as  well  as 
the  essential  nature  of  the  basic  fact  of  Christianity,  he 
did  not  perceive  the  most  important  questions  involved 


126  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

in  the  assertion  of  that  fact,  nor  the  falsity  and  future 
mischief  of  the  erroneous  ideas  and  methods  which 
Christianity  then  used  and  sanctified  to  future  gener- 
ations. Had  Paul  lived  now,  he  would  have  been  a  Ra- 
tionalist. For  although  Christianity  gave  a  new  im- 
pulse to  Humanity  in  the  right  direction,  she  not  only 
entertained  and  used  the  old  primitive  ideas,  methods 
and  evidences,  but  used  them  in  the  old  loose  and  im- 
perfect manner,  and  sanctified  them  by  her  authority. 
Never  was  a  Religion  more  exclusively  emotional  or  less 
indebted  to,  and  even  defiant  of,  reason,  then  was  Chris- 
tianity. Hugging  to  her  bosom,  near  2000  years  ago, 
the  crude  ideas,  traditions,  superstitious  and  supernatural 
methods  born  of  a  then  already  remote  and  ignorant 
past,  but  still  popular  with  the  masses,  her  founders 
boldly  proclaimed  a  new  divine  dispensation  based  upon 
a  fact  which  they  themselves  had  credited  without  in- 
vestigation and  without  sufficient  rational  or  judicial 
warrant ;  and  audaciously  staked  the  salvation  of  man- 
kind upon  their  unconditional,  individual  credence  of  it 
Not  only  did  they  retain  all  the  puerile  ideas  and  beliefs 
of  their  time  and  the  misconstrued  myths,  legends  and 
theology  of  their  remote  and  still  more  ignorant  ages, 
but  they  based  their  beliefs  .and  labors  upon  them,  and 
attempted  to  irrevocably  fix  and  fasten  them  on  the 
minds  of  the  future  as  divinely  sanctioned  facts,  prin- 
ciples and  doctrines,  and  to  thus  consummate  and  fore- 
close human  progress  and  estop  all  doubt  and  investiga- 
tion, under  the  pains  and  penalties  of  eternal  hell-fire  ! 
What  was  old, — Time  and  Superstition  had  already 
sanctified.  What  was*  added  had  been  received  from 
the  God,  Jesus ;  and  was  both  ultimate  and  all-sufficient. 


THE    TAP-ROOT    OR    BASIC    FACT    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 

All  future  change  would  be  sacrilege,  and  all  new  knowl- 
edge superfluous.  Their  views  of  progress  and  the 
catalogue  of  useful  knowledge  were  thus  epitomized 
and  graphically  expressed  by  St.  Paul : — "  I  desire  to 
know  notfiing  save  Jesus  and  him  crucified."  Reason 
and  human  wisdom  were  especially  and  systematically 
derided  and  denounced  by  Jesus  himself.  There  was 
but  "  one  thing  needful," — Martha  had  chosen  that  "  good 
part,"  by  consigning  to  her  industrious  and  provident 
sister  the  entire  household  cares  and  the  rebukes  of 
Jesus,  and  by  devoting  herself  to  the  love  and  care  of 
the  person  of  the  "  Son  of  man."  Man  was  to  "  take  no 
heed  of  to-morrow :" — the  "lilies  of  the  field  do  not  toil, 
neither  do  they  spin."  Why  should  man  ?  The  entire 
movement  was  based  upon  men's  emotions  and/rtzY/z,  and 
to  these  alone  it  appealed.  Faith  was  not  only  subro- 
gated  to  the  place  and  offices  of  reason,  but  was  forced 
to  boldly  antagonize  and  repudiate  it.  Earthly  knowl- 
edge and  endeavor  were  not  only  useless,  but  obstructive 
and  inimical.  The  "  Kingdom  of  Heaven,"  alone,  was 
worth  seeking ;  and  this  was  alone  to  be  won  by  a  God- 
given  faith,  and  at  the  expense  of  a  renunciation  of  the 
"  world  "  and  of  the  "  things  of  this  life."  Those  who 
fail  to  perceive  that  such  doctrines  are  directly  and  ex- 
pressly antagonistic  to  all  earthly  progress,  are  obsti- 
nately imperceptive.  Whatever  controversies  the  history 
of  the  Church  may  have  engendered  as  to  the  part  ft 
has  played  in  human  progress,  the  simplest  unbiased 
mind  cannot  fail  to  perceive  that,  if  the  Church  or  its 
religious  orders  have,  at  any  epoch,  aided  in  the  advance- 
ment of  human  knowledge  or  in  the  physical,  intellec- 
tual, political  or  economic  improvement  of  the  Race,  they 


128  JESUS   AND   RELIGION. 

have  done  so,  not  in  obedience  to  the  doctrines  or  to  the 
founders  of  Christianity,  or  to  the  notions  of  its  early 
saints,  but  in  defiance  of  them  all.  The  founders  of 
Christianity  had  been  taught  to  believe  that 'the  human 
race  were  lost  and  undone — that  they  had  become  ruined 
and  degraded  by  the  participation  of  Adam  in  the  fruits 
of  the  "  tree  of  knowledge :  "—that  same  "  tree  of 
knowledge  "  was  their  b$te  noir  still.  It  was  the  ruinous 
results  flowing  from  this  "  tree  of  knowledge,"  which 
faith  in  "  Jesus  and  Him  crucified "  was  to  overcome. 
They  wished  to  save  man  by  the  "foolishness  of  preach- 
ing," and  to  "know  nothing  save  Jesus  and  Him 
crucified." 


Now,  while  we  have  no  war  with  Christians  as  to 
their  aspiration  for,  and  belief  in,  immortal  life  and  hap- 
piness, nor  for  the  efforts  of  their  founders  to  secure 
satisfactory  evidences  and  assurances  of  their  beliefs  and 
hopes,  by  such  conceptions  and  methods  as  were  then 
possible  to  them,  still  we  humbly  submit  that  we  have 
a  right  to  protest  against  being  denied  the  same  privi- 
lege— against  being  foreclosed  or  estopped  from  either 
perceiving  or  rejecting  past  errors  in  any  and  every  age, 
or  from  forming  such  ideas  and  beliefs,  from  the 
advanced  stand-point  and  under  the  higher  lights  fur- 
nished by  modern  knowledge,  reason  and  development, 
as  will  conform  to  our  own  mental  status  and  furnish 
such  assurances  as  is  now  possible,  to  satisfy  our  own 
fundamental  aspirations. 


THE   TAP-ROOT    OR    BASIC    FACT    OF    CHRISTIANITY.    129 

Believing  that  the  founders  of  Christianity,  not  only 
saddled  the  errors  and  superstitions  of  their  age  and 
country  upon  Humanity,  but  erred  in  their  fundamental 
or  basic  fact  itself,  wq  have  heretofore  pointed  out  their 
errors,  together  with  their  origin  and  causes,  and  shall 
now  endeavor  to  show  that  they  erred  in  the  very  funda- 
mental fact  upon  which  their  movement  turned — that 
they  accepted  it  without  investigation  and  without 
rational  and  legitimate  warrant — that  even  the  recitals 
in  the  gospels  do  not  justify  their  conclusion  that  Jesus 
was  actually  raised  from  the  dead  or  was  reanimated 
after  complete  and  absolute  death  ;  while  the  whole  facts 
clearly  show  that  he  was  not 

9 


I3O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE   OBSTRUCTIONS   TO    A   FAIR  DECISION    OF   THE 
MAIN    ISSUE. 

THE  very  fact  of  the  fundamental  nature  of  both  the 
fact  proposed  to  be  discussed  and  the  aspiration  which 
underlies  and  is  supposed  to  be  supported  by  it,  make 
the  proposed  investigation  a  difficult  one  when  under- 
taken in  the  presence  of  millions  of  earnest  people  who 
have  staked  their  hopes  of  immortality  and  happiness 
upon  its  truth.  There  are  many  other  facts  which 
heighten  this  difficulty.  The  proposed  effort  will  not 
only  be  regarded  by  Christians  as  gratuitous  and  un- 
friendly, but  the  popular  audience  will  be  obstinately 
prejudiced  and  bitterly  antagonistic.  Man's  habitual 
mental  activity  has  been  emotional  and  sensuous,  and 
not  rational  or  critical,  especially  so  during  those  early 
stages  of.  his  development  which  fixed  our  present  men- 
tal proclivities  and  popular  beliefs.  Such  early  beliefs 
and  proclivities,  transmitted  to  us  by  tradition  and 
inheritance,  becomes  so  engrafted  into  our  very  natures, 
and  so  interwoven  with  our  habits  and  lives,  that  we 
rarely,  and  always  reluctantly,  investigate  them  ;  and  we 
are  really  quite  incapable  of  subjecting  them  to  the  full 


OBSTRUCTIONS    TO    A    FAIR    DECISION.  131 

and  fair  tests  of  reason, — even  if  we  attempted  to  do  so. 
They  so  identify  themselves  with  the  ordinary  operations 
of  our  minds  and  with  the  habitual  currents  of  our 
thoughts,  emotions  and  desires  and  our  human  inter- 
ests and  associations,  that  they  are  too  near  the  estab- 
lished focus  of  our  mental  vision  for  either  a  clear 
insight  or  critical  observation.  By  their  coordination 
with,  and  adjustment  to,  our  habitual  life-thoughts,  hopes 
and  actions,  they  both  color  and  control  our  mental 
action  ;  and  every  attempt  to  eradicate  or  change  them 
tends  to  produce  a  painful  mental  hiatus  or  to  introduce 
uncoordinated,  discordant  and  deranging  elements  into 
our  habitual  thoughts  and  life-modes.  We  do  not  feel 
willing  to  concede  this  controlling  bias  in  our  mental 
action  upon  our  own  hereditary  religious  beliefs,  but  it 
should  become  manifest  to  us  when  we  find  that  we  so 
readily  perceive  the  bigotry  and  peurility  of  other  relig- 
ionists whos'e  pretensions  differ  from  our  own  only  in  the 
fact  that  they  are  their  pretensions  and  not  ours.  We 
can  judge  others  with  a  spirit  of  unsparing  criticism. 
We  can  subject  their  evidence,  methods  and  conclusions 
to  all,  and  even  more  than  all,  the  rigors  of  logic  and  the 
inexorable  conclusions  of  science.  We  seem  to  compen- 
sate for  our  blindness  to  just  such  evidences,  methods 
and  beliefs  existing  in  our  own  sacred  creeds  and  records, 
by  the  fierceness  and  zeal  with  which  we  demolish 
them  in  those  of  other  people.  We  are  inoculated 
with  our  religious  beliefs  in  our  infancy,  and  have  them 
constantly  instilled  into  us,  during  the  earlier  and  more 
plastic  period  of  our  lives,  from  the  sacred  lips  of 
priest  and  mother  and  with  the  uncloubting  assent  of  all 
around  us  ;  and  they  are  so  fostered  and  nursed,  under 


132  JESUS   AND   RELIGION. 

this  hot-house  culture,  that  they  are  gradually  organ- 
ized into  the  very  warp  and  woof  of  our  lives,  and  finally 
harden  into  an  undoubting,  unreasoning  and  bigoted 
Faith, 


To  men  thus  warped  and  set,  the  grossest  irration- 
alities, incongruities,  contradictions,  errors  and  even 
absurdities  in  their  accepted  faiths,  cease  to  be  regarded 
as  such,  or' even  to  arrest  their  attention.  To  those 
born  and  bred  within  the  clatter  of  machinery  or  the 
roar  of  a  water-fall,  their  noise  ceases  to  be  even  a  sub- 
ject of  attention  ;  while  their  interruption  or  cessation 
would  result  in  a  painful  sense  of  loss.  Inbred  errors 
glide  through  the  well-worn  mental  grooves  without  a 
foot-fall  being  intercepted  in  consciousness.  Even  our 
reason  has  been  so  long  forced  to  become  the  advocate 
and  defender  of  our  hereditary  creeds,  that  it  has  become 
callous  to  their  irrationalities,  and  falls  into  its  routine 
of  assigned  duties  with  the  indifference  of  a  drilled 
attorney,  who  has  only  to  convince  himself  and  an  over- 
willing  jury.  And  should  it  dare  .question  or  revolt,  its 
treason  is  at  once  stifled  by  dire  penalties  here,  and  by 
the  fear  of  still  more  frightful  penalties  hereafter.  Let 
any  two  of  the  many  great  opposing  religions  of  the 
world,  whose  supernaturalisms  and  asserted  divine  en- 
dorsements are  substantially  the  same,  meet  in  contro- 
versy, and  we  should  at  once  see  the  extent  to  which  rea- 
son is  suborned  and  enslaved.  In  such  a  controversy  each 
would  turn  with  astonishment  and  indignation  from  the 


OBSTRUCTIONS    TO    A    FAIR    DECISION.  133 

presumptuous  and  preposterous  pretensions  of  the  other, 
and  would  bemoan  each  other's  obstinate  and  purblind 
credulity ;  and  yet  each  will  have  the  profound,  but  un- 
conscious, audacity  to  claim  the  indubitable  rationality 
and  infallibility  of  its  own  claims  and  doctrines. 

Such  mental  conditions  and  influences  are  utterly 
obstructive  of  a  rational  investigation  of  any  fundamental 
religious  dogma,  and  the  true  investigator  is  to  be 
deemed  fortunate  who  can  command  .a  hearing  at  all, 
and  secure  even  tolerable  charity  for  his  motives.  To 
complain  of  this,  however,  is  to  complain  of  Nature  her- 
self. Religious  jealousy  and  bigotry  are  everywhere, 
and  increase  with  the  progressive  growth  of  Religion 
until  it  reaches  its  rationalistic  stage.  The  traveller 
who  comes  to  the  windward  of  a  fetich  or  has  trodden 
on  the  toe  of  an  idol  or  peeped  in  upon  the  secret  orgies 
of  their  worshippers,  finds  himself  suddenly  surrounded 
by  infuriated  savages,  who  menace  him  with  imminent 
death.  The  Brahmin  ranks  high  as  a  Thinker,  yet  the 
shabbiest  beggar  of  the  Caste  would  consider  himself 
defiled  to  be  even  touched  by  a  Marcus  Aurelian  or  St. 
Peter,  or  by  eating  food  cooked  by  his  English  Empress, 
Victoria.  The  most  enlightened  nation  of  antiquity 
.sacrificed  their  Socrates  for  sacrilege  or  infidelity  to  their 
trumpery  and  immoral  Gods.  Imagine,  also,  if  you  can, 
the  illimitable  fury  which  would  be  aroused  in  the  black- 
browed  Imams  and  white-bearded  Soufis  of  Islam,  were 
some  Christian  to  penetrate  to  the  presence  of  the 
"  sacred  stone  "  of  Mecca  and  there  dare  to  question  its 
descent  from  Heaven,  or  to  question  the  divine  mission 
of  the  Prophet,  or  to  assert  the  equality  of  the  Son  of 


134  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

Mary  with  Allah  himself !  Would  the  "  Latter-day- 
Saints  "  be  less  infuriated  were  a  truculent  Gentile  to 
malign  and  denounce  as  a  fraud  their  prophet  Joseph  ? 
Or  the  burly  priests  at  Rome  at  having  the  immaculate 

conception  of  Mary  or  the  divinity  of  Jesus  questioned  ? 

/ 

The  truth  is  that  man's  superstitions  and  super- 
natural creeds  everywhere  spurn  the  abitrament  of 
reason,  and  their  believers,  both  openly  and  secretly, 
despise  investigation,  and  persecute  the  free  and  fearless 
investigator.  The  Theology  of  Supernaturalism  is 
everywhere  sleeplessly  jealous,  intolerant  and  vindic- 
tive. Men  may  consent  to  be  contradicted  or  even  to  be 
convinced  of  their  ignorance  or  errors  regarding  mat- 
ters which  they  can  know,  but  they  become  spitefully 
deaf  when  you  would  expose  the  errors  of  their  crude 
notions  of  the  unknown  or  unknowable.  They  may 
listen  to  you  upon  the  most  important  earthly  affairs, 
but  dare  to  touch  their  absurdest  and  most  impossible 
dreams  of  the  Invisible  World  and  they  will  cling  to 
them  with  a  blind  obstinacy  proportioned  to  their  irra- 
tionality. Your  reason  becomes  the  antagonist  of  their 
desires,  of  which  their  notions  are  a  reflex.  The  very 
indefensibility  of  their  crude  conceptions  makes  them 
spiteful  as  hornets.  Scores  of  heaven-born,  but  antago- 
nistic and  conflicting,  creeds  are  thus  obstinately  held  as 
sacred  and  inviolable  by  the  Human  Race.  Men  require 
strict  legal  proof  of  the  slightest  claim  to  property,  and 
demand  proof  "  beyond  all  rational  doubt"  to  establish  a 
theft  or  a  burglary,  while  absolutely  rejecting  all  unsworn 
and  all  hearsay  testimony ;  and  yet  they  will  believe 
in  the  suspension  and  reversal  of  those  laws  of  nature 


OBSTRUCTIONS    TO    A    FAIR    DECISION.  135 

upon  whose  stability  and  inflexible  reliability  all  truth 
and  confidence  must  rest,  or  in  the  birth  of  the  Infinite 
God  from  a  mere  woman  in  the  ordinary  course  of  embry- 
onic development  or  gestation,  upon  the  bare  assertions 
of  ancient,  unverified,  conflicting  and  disputed  writings, 
either  invented  or  compiled  from  hearsays  and  traditions 
floating  among  ignorant  and  superstitious  people;  and 
will  promptly  stake  their  salvation  upon  unauthenticated 
and  unverified  evidence,  which,  if  fully  authenticated  as 
genuine,  they  would  as  promptly  reject  as  worthless  in  a 
trial  for  a  debt  of  five  dollars.  Men  not  only  lock  in 
their  superstitions  and  sacred  creeds,  but  would  forever 
bury  the  key ;  and  he  who  would  venture  to  inspect  the 
mouldy  contents  of  these  sealed  vaults  consecrated  to 
Superstition,  is  treated  as  a  blasphemer  and  a  desecrator 
of  holy  things. 


When  a  people  have  their  faith  embodied  in  "  sacred 
books,"  the  task  of  exposing  religious  errors  becomes 
greatly  more  difficult.  Christianity  has  felt  the  force  of 
this  difficulty.  Outside  of  the  Roman  Empire  in  which 
it  originated,  it  has  never  been  enabled  to  convert  a  peo- 
ple having  such  sacred  records.  Such  religionists,  like 
the  Christians,  refer  every  questioner  to  their  own  sacred 
books  as  final  and  infallible.  Once  bastioned  with  these 
infallible  and  bomb-proof  supernatural  records,  Super- 
stition may  "laugh  a  seige  to  scorn."  Everything  is 
proven  by  "  The  Book,"  and  the  book  proves  itself — in 
itself  implies  verity ! 


JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

No  religion,  save  the  faith  of  Islam,  places  so 
supreme  a  value  upon  faith — sheer  unreasoning  faith — 
as  does  Christianity ;  and  none  hurls  such  frightful  hell- 
penalties  at  the  head  of  even  the  honest  doubter  and 
skeptic.  Each  of  these  Semitic  religions  offers,  also, 
the  most  divine  rewards  for  absolute,  childish  trust  and 
credence.  And  yet,  each  regards  this  demand  for  un- 
questioning faith  by  the  other  as  a  piece  of  most 
intolerable  audacity  and  consummate  presumption, — and 
denounces  it  as  the  bold  effrontery  of  imposture.  Each 
is  more  intolerant  of  the  presumption  and  superstitious 
credulity  of  the  other,  than  is  the  skeptic.  The  only 
just  apologist  of  each  to  the  other  is  the  common  dis- 
believer of  the  supernatural  pretensions  of  both. 

How  few  of-  us,  indeed,  are  willing  or  even  capable 
of  applying  the  same  rules  of  evidence  and  the  same 
measure  of  justice  to  our  own  religious  creeds  which  we 
apply  to  those  of  all  others  ?  Even  those  who  suppose 
that  they  have  thrown  off  the  yoke  of  Supernaturalism 
are  often  unconsciously  controlled  by  its  dogmas  and 
influences  ;  while  there  are,  perhaps,  none  who  do  not 
still  retain  old  notions  which  are  unsupported  by  evi- 
dence or  reason,  and  which  are  out  of  harmony  with, 
and  unadjusted  to,  their  reformed  rationalistic  views. 
Our  last  errors  to  receive  correction  are  those  pertaining 
to  Theology.  And  yet,  Why  should  we  refuse  or  hesi- 
tate to  investigate  and  reform  our  religious,  any  more 
than  scientific  or  historic,  beliefs  ?  Can  any  subject  be 
more  worthy  of  our  utmost  rational  endeavors  ?  Why 
are  we,  or  at  least  Why  need  we  be,  so  timid  about  this 
matter  ?  Surely,  the  facts  themselves  cannot  be  altered 


OBSTRUCTIONS    TO    A    FAIR    DECISION.  137 

by  our  mental  conclusions  about  them  ;  nor  could  God 
require  more  than  our  best  and  highest  endeavors  by 
that  reason  which  is,  not  only  our  highest,  but  sole 
arbiter  of  truth.  Our  irrational  assumption  of  the  facts 
or  our  belief  in  them  cannot  make  them  exist.  Fact  and 
Truth  reign  in  eternal  accord  with  true  Reason,  without 
regard  to  human  faith  or  belief.  Our  duty  manifestly  is, 
not  to  endeavor  to  supply  the  facts  or  to  substitute  our 
beliefs  or  desires  for  them,  but  to  conform  our  beliefs  to 
the  real  and  existing  facts  by  the  highest  means  and 
methods  possible  to  us.  If  our  data  are  insufficient  or 
imperfect, — increase  or  improve  them.  If  our  reason  is 
inadequate, — cultivate  and  develop  it.  If  our  desires  are 
adverse  and  obstructive, — subordinate  them  to,  and  co- 
ordinate them  with,  the  divine  facts  and  purposes  of 
Being,  as  they  are  manifested  in  its  universal  evolutions. 
The  fact  that  scenes  and  events  occurred  in  the  remote 
past  and  lie  buried  amid  the  undistinguishable  rubbish 
of  decayed  centuries  may  put  them  beyond  the  pale  of 
knowledge,  but  not  outside  the  jurisdiction  of  Reason. 
Ought  the  very  facts  and  considerations  which  make 
them  rationally  incredible  or  unreclaimable,  to  also 
secure  their  sanctity  and  infallibility  ?  Ought  not  the 
illy-comprehended  theological  assumptions  and  religious 
notions  of  the  early,  myth-forming  ages  and  the  zealous 
and  interested  assertions  of  priests  and  propagandists,  to 
be  treated  at  least  as  scrutinizingly  as  all  others  ?  Does 
not  all  human  history  and  experience  painfully  demon- 
strate the  absolute  necessity  of  treating  such  evidences 
with  extraordinary  precautions  against  fraud,  error  and 
imposition  rather  than  with  blind  credulity  ?  If  these 
alleged  " divine  truths  "  are  real  divine  truths,  intended 


138  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

by  God  for  man's  belief, — Ought  they  not  to  stand  any 
amount  of  investigation  ? — nay,  more,  Should  they  not 
court  all  tests  and  defy  all  scrutiny  f  Would  God  put 
the  salvation  or  damnation  of  the  whole  Human  Race, 
for  all  eternity,  upon  evidence  wholly  incomprehensible 
or  inconclusive,  or  less  rationally  satisfying  than  that 
required  to  prove  the  most  ordinary  facts  ?  Would  He 
offer  salvation  or  damnation  upon  the  alternative  of  a 
belief  requiring  a  credulity  which  would  leave  us  at  the 
mercy  of  every  cunning  impostor  and  compel  us  to 
accept  every  antideluvian  notion  and  superstition  ?  If 
God  really  holds  us  responsible  for  our  beliefs — Would 
he  not  rather  hold  us  guilty  for  a  hasty,  inconsiderate 
acceptance  of  unproved  aid  irrational  beliefs — for  not 
earnestly  using  the  reason  and  means  that  he  has  given 
us,  than  for  errors  in  rejecting  that  which  our  highest 
intelligence  forbade  us  to  believe  ?  Men  tremble  at  the 
bare  idea  of  denying  that  a  young  carpenter,  who  was 
executed  some  2000  years  ago,  was  God  ; — Do  they  ever 
pause  to  think  of  the  very  Belshazzar-trembling  that  may 
seize  upon  them  when  (in  their  own  language)  they 
"  face  the  Infinite  God,"  and  are  asked  how  they  have 
dared  to  place  a  mere  man  upon  the  throne  of  the 
Infinite  and  identify  him  with  God  !  If  they  think  that 
God  damns  men  for  blasphemy  and  false  opinions, — 
May  it  not  be  as  well  to  hear  God's  side,  also,  before 
awarding  His  very  being  and  throne  to  a  mere  human 
claimant — (if  he  ever  did  claim  it)  ?  Is  there  not,  from 
their  own  stand-point  of  responsibility,  another  and  very 
appalling  side  to  this  question  ? 


OBSTRUCTIONS   TO    A    FAIR    DECISION.  139 

If  what  has  been  said  shall  tend,  in  any  degree,  to 
render  the  views  to  be  taken  less  startling  by  reason  of 
their  conflict  with  our  hereditary  notions,  and  to  induce 
the  reader  to  at  least  endeavor  to  actually  use  his  every- 
day-reason and  common  sense  about  the  witnesses,  evi- 
dences, methods  and  conclusions  touching  his  own 
religion  and  its  records,  in  the  same  manner  he  would 
about  those  of  other  religions  or  as  if  the  alleged  events 
and  sayings  were  now  happening  or  being  narrated  under 
similar  and  equivalent  conditions,  then  our  chief  object 
and  highest  hope  has  been  achieved.  And  let  it  be 
remembered,  that  the  very  first  step  towards  divesting 
ourselves  of  irrational  partialities  in  this  matter,  is  to 
fully  realize  and  appreciate  the  fact  that  we  must  no 
longer  indulge  in  that  old,  childish  method  of  "  reason- 
ing in  a  circle  " — that  method  to  which  we  have  been  so 
long  accustomed  to  listen  with  approval,  or  at  least  with- 
out objection — that  method  by  which  Christianity  and 
its  Bible  are  accepted  as  divinely  endorsed,  and  are  per- 
mitted to  prove  their  infallibility  by  their  divine  origin 
or  inspiration,  and  then  prove  their  divine  origin  and 
inspiration  by  their  own  already-established  and  infallible 
authority  The  sayings  and  narratives  in  the  Bible  must 
be  accepted  for  what  they  are  worth  as  human  testi- 
mony, and  not  for  a  penny-worth  more,  in  all  discussions 
where  its  infallibility  is  not  conceded.  Our  being 
taught  to  regard  il  as  inspired  has  not  the  slightest  tend- 
ency to  make  it  so.  Nor  are  the  assertions  of  the  Jews 
that  they  are  the  special  and  favored  people  of  God  of 
any  more  value  than  the  self-asserted  superiority  of  the 
Brahmin  or  of  the  pig-tailed  citizen  of  the  "  Celestial 
Empire ;  "  nor  are  their  notions  of,  or  claims  to,  divine 


I4O  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

inspiration,  deserving  of  higher  consideration  than  those 
of  Islam  or  other  religions.  In  a  rational  point  of  view, 
Christianity  presents  its  claims  for  acceptance  or  rejec- 
tion now,  as  it  did  in  the  beginning  ;  and  must  legiti- 
mately and  affirmatively  establish  the  facts  it  asserts  and 
its  entire  claims  to  divine  authority  by  the  full  amounts, 
kinds  and  rules  of  evidence  demanded  by  human  reason 
and  experience.  In  thus  divesting  ourselves  of  the 
assumptions  and  infallibility  of  the  Church  and  its  Bible, 
indeed,  we  are  but  divesting  ancient  writings  of  a  sanc- 
tity and  infallible  authority  conferred  on  them  solely  by 
subsequent  ages  ;  for  none  of  the  books  we  shall  rely 
upon,  and,  with  slight  exceptions,  none  others,  make  any 
claim  to  having  been  written  by  special  divine  inspira- 
tion ;  nor  were  the  books  composing  the_  New  Testament 
regarded  as  part  of  the  "  Sacred  Scriptures  "  either  by 
their  own  authors  or  by  the  men  of  their  time.  But, 
while  demanding  the  benefit  of  these  truths  and  insist- 
ing that  the  burden  of  proof  is  upon  the  Church  which 
asserts  the  facts  in  issue,  it  will  be  found,  that  we  do  not 
practically  avail  ourselves  of  these  advantages,  but  really 
take  the  burden  of  negativing  the  Scriptural  conclusions 
discussed,  by  the  facts  as  substantially  narrated  in  the 
Gospels. 


THE    PROMULGATORS   OF   THE   EVIDENCE. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE   PROMULGATORS    OF    THE   EVIDENCE. 

IT  would  be  with  little  propriety  that  we  could 
approach  the  discussion  of  such  a  subject  as  the  resurrec- 
tion of  Jesus  without  first  endeavoring  to  comprehend 
the  nature  and  value  of  the  materials  with  which  we 
shall  be  compelled  to  deal.  Characters,  opinions  and 
actions  so  remote  from  us  in  time,  space,  race,  develop- 
ment, conditions  and  intelligence,  cannot  be  correctly 
judged  from  our  own  status  and  stand-point.  We  must 
endeavor,  therefore,  however  imperfectly,  to  recover  and 
realize  both  the  personal  and  impersonal  facts  influenc- 
ing the  main  fact  to  be  investigated  and  the  evidence 
upon  which  its  decision  depends.  Let  us  endeavor  to 
at  least  approximately  comprehend  the  characters  and 
the  mental  and  social  status  of  the  chief  actors  and  wit- 
nesses and  the  motives  influencing  them,  as  well  as  the 
authenticity  and  value  of  the  written  testimony  concern- 
ing them,  and  the  public  conditions  and  persons  who 
influenced  the  final  event.  In  short,  Let  us  endeavor  to 
bring  ourselves  into  rapport  with  those  early  times  and 
actors  that  we  may  appreciate  their  views,  actions  and 
testimony.  And  first,  Let  us  endeavor  to  form  some 


142  JESUS   AND   RELIGION. 

notion  of  the  value  of  the  record  of  the  evidence  and 
some  conception  of  the  persons  who  furnished  that 
evidence. 


Accustomed  to  witness  the  imperial  power  and  splen- 
dor of  the  triumphant  Christian  Church,  it  is  wellnigh 
impossible  to  realize  the  true  status  and  condition  of  its 
founders — to  realize  the  rude  appearance  and  habits  and 
the  lowly  simplicity  and  profound  ignorance  of  the  little 
crowd  of  men  and  women  who  followed  Jesus  and  bore 
witness  to  his  works  and  sayings.  They  are  no  longer, 
to  us,  what  Fact  or  even  the  Scripture  makes  them,  but 
are  beings  wholly  idealized  by  Time  and  Art.  Whether 
any  of  the  original  Twelve  could  write  is  uncertain.  If 
any  it  was  Matthew,  the  Publican.  The  occupation  and 
condition  of  the  others  would,  in  that  age  and  country, 
forbid  us  to  credit  them  with  an  accomplishment  then  so 
unusual,  even  had  their  ignorance  and  illiteracy  not  been 
used  to  verify  their  pretensions  to  supernatural  aid,  in  the 
Scriptures  themselves.  But  Jesus  and  his  disciples  were 
said  to  be  wholly  illiterate,  as  we  find  in  the  Gospels. 
With  the  exception  of  Matthew,  who  held  the  odious 
position  of  Publican,  they  all  seem  to  have  been  simple 
fishermen — neither  above  or  below  the  average  of  their 
class,  save  perhaps  in  morality,  and  certainly  in  credulity : 
— a  class  noted,  the  world  over,  for  simple  ignorance  and 
unbounded  credulity  and  superstition. 

The  young  carpenter  of   Nazareth  seems   to   have 


THE    PROMULGATORS    OF    THE    EVIDENCE.         143 

confined  his  selections,  with  the  exception  of  Judas,  to 
the  Tetrarchy  of  Galilee,  and  almost  exclusively  to  the 
simple  fisherman-class.  In  no  instance  did  he  select  or 
endeavor  to  procure  one  of  education  and  standing  in 
society,  nor  any  one  from  the  mercantile  or  agricultural 
classes,  or  even  from  his  own  mechanic  class 

Mr.  Beecher,  in  his  Life  of  Christ,  says : — "  It  is 
impossible,  from  the  materials  at  our  command,  to  ascer- 
tain upon  what  principles  of  selection  the  disciples  were 
gathered.  But  few  of  them  asserted  any  such  individ- 
uality as  to  bring  their  names  into  view  during  the 
ministry  of  Jesus.  *  *  They  were  all  selected  from 
the  common  walks  of  life.  None  of  them  gave  evidence 
of  peculiar  depth  of  religious  feeling.  None  of  them 
except  John  ever  exhibited  any  traits.  That  they  were 
subject  to  the  common  faults  of  humanity  abundantly 
appears  in  their  disputes  among  themselves,  in  their 
worldly  ambitions,  in  their  plotting  to  supersede  each 
other,  in  their  rash  and  revengeful  imprecations  of  judg- 
ments upon  the  villagers  who  had  treated  Jesus  with 
disrespect,  and  in  their  utter  lack  of  courage  when  the 
final  catastrophe  was  approaching.  They  believed  in  an 
earthly  kingdom  for  the  Messiah,  and,  with  the  rest  of 
their  people,  anticipated  a  carnal  triumph  of  Jesus  over 
all  his  enemies.  They  could  not  be  made  believe  that 
their  master  was  to  be  put  to  death  ;  and  when  he  was 
arrested,  they — '  all  forsook  him  and  fled.'  They  hovered 
in  bewilderment  around  the  solemn  tragedy,  but  one  of 
them,  John,  had  the  courage  to  be  present  and  near  at 
the  crucifixion  of  their  Teacher.  Looking  externally 
upon  these  men,  contrasting  them  with  such  as  Nico- 


144  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

demus  and  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  the  question  arises, 
whether  among  all  the  more  highly  cultivated  Jews, 
among  Pharisees  and  Doctors,  there  might  not  have  been 
found  sincere  men,  of  deeply  religious  natures,  of  edu- 
cated intelligence,  who,  under  the  same  amount  of  per- 
sonal instruction,  would  have  been  far  more  capable  of 
carrying  forward  the  work  of  the  New  Kingdom.  All 
that  can  be  known  is,  that  Jesus  chose  his  disciples  from 
Galilee,  far  away  from  the  Temple  influence  and  in  a 
province  much  affected  with  the  'foreign  spirit ;  that  he 
selected  them,  not  from  the  specifically  religious  class, 
but  from  the  working  people.  None  are  mentioned  as 
from  agricultural  pursuits,  and  all  whose  occupations  are 
mentioned  were  more  or  less  concerned  with  commerce. 
That  there  were  reasons  in  his  own  mind  for  the  selec- 
tion none  can  doubt,  and  none  can  ever  know  what  the 
reasons  were." 

Mr.  Beecher  is  right :  none  can  ever  know  what  his 
reasons  were,  but  it  is  equally  impossible  for  the  rational 
and  unbiased  mind  to  fail  to  perceive  that  there  is  a  violent 
presumption  as  to  the  nature  of  his  reasons  and  motives 
for  selecting  such  men  as  Mr.  Beecher  describes  for  the 
purposes  for  which  he  actually  used  them.  Mr.  Beecher 
not  only  leads  us  directly  up  to  the  qualities  for  which 
they  were  actually  chosen,  but  renders  the  true  con- 
clusion resistless  by  negativing  all  others.  The  chosen 
disciples,  even  according  to  Mr.  Beecher,  had  neither 
the  conduct,  nor  the  courage  to  fight.  They  had  neither 
wealth,  position  nor  influence  to  offer  to  the  cause. 
They  had  not  sufficient  education  or  intelligence  to  con- 
vince the  Wise,  or  to  sway  the  public.  They  had  not 


THE    PROMULGATORS    OF    THE    EVIDENCE.         145 

the  capacity  even  to  imitate  the  "  marvellous  works  "  of 
their  master,  to  any  valuable  extent.  In  the  presence  of 
Jesus  they  said  little,  and  did  less.  They  made  but  few 
efforts  even  in  his  absence,  but  with  the  most  discourag- 
ing results.  The  great  majority  of  them  are  never 
brought  into  notice,  at  all,  during  his  public  career,  and 
were  left  to  sink  into  oblivion  after  it  ; — being  mere 
dummies  before  the  resurrection  and  equally  so  after  it. 
He  selected  twelve,  not  because  that  special  number 
were  required  for  witnesses,  but  as  representatives  of 
the  "  twelve  tribes :  " — he  really  used  and  trusted  but 
three.  None  of  them  ever  performed  a  valuable  service 
or  met  with  a  single  success  during  his  ministry  or  trial, 
nor  gave  the  slightest  evidence  of  capacity  for  aiding 
such  an  enterprise.  He  in  fact  rebuked  even  the  slight- 
est indications  of  their  possessing  independent  opinions. 
Absolute  faith,  devotion  and  obedience  was  what  was 
demanded  of  them,  and  these  .they  accorded  him.  They 
had,  Mr.  Beecher  tells  us,  nothing  to  specially  commend 
them  either  in  their  moral,  or  religious  natures  or 
conduct.  None, -he  says,  ever  exhibited  a  trait  of  genius 
save  John ;  and  we  confess  that  we  have  not  been 
enabled  to  see  the  justice  of  the  exception  or  the  pro- 
priety of,  in  any  manner,  connecting  the  exalted  w.ord, 
genius,  with  the  name  of  John.  But,  Mr.  Beecher  is 
right :  there  must  have  been  some  motive  governing  their 
selection  : — What  was  it  ?  Mr.  Beecher  says  "  none  can 
ever  know."  Now,  what  he  himself  shows  to  be  his  real 
difficulty  is,  not  that  there  are  no  sufficient  means  of 
knowing,  but  that,  from  his  own  view  of  Jesus  and  his 
mission,  it  is  impossible  for  him  to  conceive  the  motive 
for  such  a  selection.  He  is  evidently  impressed  with 

10 


146  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

the  idea  that  the  selections  could  have  been  improved  in 
the  mode  he  suggests — an  exactly  opposite  mode  to  the 
one  actually  adopted.     If  it  had  been  Mahomet  who  had 
so  acted  instead  of  Jesus,  Mr.  Beecher  would  have  found 
no   difficulty   in    assigning    the   true   inducement    and 
motive  for  the  selection.      He  fails  to  find  in  the  men 
selected  a  single  special  qualification  required  by  his 
own  view  of  the  purposes  for  which  they  were  selected, 
because  they  had  none ;  while  they  clearly  seem  to  him 
to  have   had  many  and  glaring  disqualifications.     The 
only    qualities  which  specially  distinguished  them,  and 
were   also  peculiar  to  all  of  them,  point  with  unerring 
certainty  to  the  real  motive — a  motive  which  Mr.  Beecher 
dare  not  know,  and  could  even  hint  of  his  divine  Master. 
Had  Mr.  Beecher,  however,  found  Mahomet  or  any  other 
aspirant  for  the  honor  of  founding  a  new  kingdom   or  a 
new  Religion,  by  the  means  of  thaumaturgic  or  mirac- 
ulous exhibitions  to  secure  a  belief  in  his  divine  mission 
by  the  ignorant   and   superstitious    multitude,  choosing 
for  his  constant  personal  followers  and  assistants  men 
from  the  humblest,  most  ignorant  and  most  superstitious 
and  credulous  class,  who  exhibited  no  special  traits  or 
capacity,  save  an  exceptional  credulity  even  among  their 
exceptionally  credulous  class — an  unfailing  aptitude  for 
believing  without  doubt  or  criticism  whatever  they  were 
desired  to  believe,  as  well  as  for  doing  whatever  they 
were  told  to   do,  and   roundly  testifying  to,  and    freely 
publishing  their  own  superstitious  and  credulous  beliefs 
and  conclusions  as  actual  facts,  and  who  could  be  spurred 
on  inimitably  by  their  childish  vanity  and  desire  to  be 
set  in  high  places  and  on  the  "  right  hand  of  power," — 
and  who  had  no  other  qualifications  either  useful  or  or- 


THE    PROMULGATORS    OF    THE    EVIDENCE.          147 

namental ;  and  had  he  also  found  that  their  Master  knew 
of  this  lack  of  higher  qualifications  and  still  retained  them 
as  his  exclusive  assistants,  and  used  them  for  the  special 
qualities  they  did  possess,  —  Would  Mr.  Beecher  have 
had  any  hesitation  in  saying — "  Mahomet  evidently  chose 
these  men  expressly  for  assistants  and  witnesses  in  his 
miracle-working,  and  for  that  purpose  chose  with  sa- 
gacity :  their  ignorance,  superstition,  credulity  and  im- 
plicit trust  and  obedience  admirably  qualified  them  for 
'  scene  shifters  '  and  witnesses  to  aid  and  give  currency 
to  the  thaumaturgic  feats  of  their  master?"  This 
would  be  his  first  and  inevitable  conclusion.  But  when 
we  strike  out  the  name,  Mahomet,  and  insert  that  of 
Jesus,  the  mind  of  Mr.  Beecher  flies  as  wild  as  a  mag- 
netic needle  when  a  loadstone  is  waved  over  it.  He  is  be- 
wildered. He  looks  dazedly  around  in  search  of  a  motive 
for  such  a  course  in  Jesus — in  Jesus  the  God  : — no,  there 
is  no  conceivable  motive  possible  to  a  God  anywhere  to  be 
found.  "  There  must  have  been  some  principle  of  selec- 
tion, but  it  can  never  be  known,"  sighs  the  venerable 
servant  at  the  altar  of  Jesus  :  he  dare  not  even  think  of 
the  motive  which  would  be  glaringly  palpable  in  the  case 
of  another,  in  connection  with  his  Divine  Master !  Mr. 
Beecher  cannot  review  the  facts,  however,  without  being 
impelled  to  query  whether  a  higher  and  more  suitable 
selection  might  not  have  been  made — whether  such  men 
as  Nicodemus  and  Joseph  of  Arimathea  would  not  have 
done  better.  Here,  as  before,  if  the  Koran  instead  of 
the  Bible  had  furnished  us  the  facts,  Mr.  Beecher  would 
have  had  no  difficulty : — he  would  have  perceived  that 
Jesus  positively  avoided  having  the  intelligent  classes  as 
his  personal  followers  and  as  witnesses  of  his  wonder- 


148  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

working,  and  that  it  was  quite  impossible  for  such  men 
to  have  followed,  served  and  testified  for  him  as  did  the 
ignorant  and  credulous  fishermen  of  Galilee  ;  however 
much  they  might  have  sympathized  with  his  humane 
and  democratic  principles,  and  his  ardent  hopes  for  the 
speedy  "  redemption  of  Israel." 


Jesus  did  not  fail  in  his  essential  purpose  in  the 
choice  of  his  personal  followers, — Judas  excepted.  He 
was,  indeed,  specially  sagacious  in  reading  both  the 
characters  and  intentions  of  men.  He  chose  his  attend- 
ant disciples  for  witnesses  to  his  "wonderful  works," 
and  as  "  chosen  witnesses  "  they  proved  themselves  ad- 
mirable and  unfailing  in  their  unquestioning  faith  and 
in  the  positive  and  unqualified  nature  of  their  testimony. 
When  their  master  and  expected  king  seemed  utterly 
abandoned  by  all  others  their  faith,  their  credulity,  their 
willing  obedience,  and  their  hopes  of  being  his  highest 
officials  and  kingly  favorites,  when  his  miracles  should 
have  won  him  a  throne,  never  deserted  them  for  a  mo- 
ment until  their  hopes  and  confidence  were  alike  blasted 
by  his  final  arrest.  If  they  failed  in  all  things  which 
required  intelligence  or  skill,  it  was  because  the  neces- 
sary qualities  which  fitted  them  for  miracle-proving 
rendered  them  unfit  for  higher  duties.  Jesus  unavailingly 
tried  to  use  them  for  other  purposes,  but  yielded  at  once 
and  with  scarce  a  murmur  when  they  failed  ;  as  if  he 
were  conscious  that  they  ought  not  have  been  expected 
to  succeed  by  qualities  directly  opposite  to  those  for 
which  they  were  chosen.  They  at  least  demonstrated 


THE    PROMULGATORS    OF    THE    EVIDENCE.         149 

by  their  whole  conduct  both  the  motive  for  their  selec- 
tion and  the  sagacity  of  the  choice.  They  followed  him 
with  ready  credulity  upon  his  very  first  offer,  or  sum- 
mons, and  continued  to  follow  him  with  an  all-accepting 
faith  and  hopeful  devotion  to  the  last.  This  was  the 
kind  of  followers  Jesus  loved  and  demanded.  For  while 
he  was  especially  fond  of  cross-questioning  and  con- 
founding others,  he  brooked  no  question  of  his  own 
claims,  and  became  harshly  vituperative  to  opponents 
and  doubters,  when  his  own  powers  or  performances 
were  questioned. 

Besides  this  chosen  band  of  attendant  witnesses,  there 
would  seem  to  have  been  a  number  of  women  who  fre- 
quently, if  not  ordinarily,  followed  them  in  their  per- 
egrinations. Perhaps  there  are  only  two  of  these  women 
upon  whose  character  the  Gospels  throw  any  light.  We 
find  the  mother  of  James  and  John  an  active  participant 
in  the  contentions  for  the  anticipated  positions  and 
offices  under  King  Jesus,  among  the  chosen  twelve,  and 
demanding  of  Jesus  that  the  two  highest  places — those  on 
the  right  and  left  hand  of  his  throne — should  be  given  to 
her  sons.  The  other — Mary  Magdalen — is  claimed  to 
have  been  a  woman  of  "easy  virtue,"  out  of  whom  seven 
devils  had  been  cast.  Her  personal  attachment  and  de- 
votion seems  to  have  been  very  decided:  It  is  not  diffi- 
cult to  conceive  such  women,  or  to  comprehend  the  kind 
of  women  who  would  constitute  such  a  following.  They 
would  not  probably  be  less  credulous,  superstitious, 
ignorant  or  interested,  nor  less  efficient  in  spreading 
accounts  of  the  miracles  of  their  master,  than  were  their 
male  companions. 


I5O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

Such  were  the  chosen  witnesses  and  other  immediate 
followers  upon  whose  testimony,  at  the  best,  we  are  com- 
pelled to  depend  for  our  belief  in  numberless  miraculous 
suspensions  of  the  laws  of  Nature,  and  for  our  Knowledge 
of  the  salvation  of  the  World.  It  was  they  who  gave 
testimony  and  currency  to  the  facts  and  stories  which, 
in  more  or  less  mutilated  and  modified  forms,  entered 
into,  and  constituted  the  frame-work  of,  the  gospel  nar- 
ratives and  the  early  Christian  legends  and  traditions. 
If  we  are  not  wholly  untrue  to  ourselves — if  we  do  not 
wholly  suppress  our  reason  and  common  sense,  we  shall 
be  at  little  loss  in  estimating  the  value  of  such  testimony, 
— especially  as  to  the  suspension  of  the  Laws  of  Nature, 
of  whose  very  existence  they  had  never  even  dreamed. 

That  Jesus  took  the  very  best  possible  modes  and 
instruments  to  have  his  miracles  attested  2d\&  circulated, 
is  not  to  be  contested.  That  he  also  took,  however,  the 
very  worst  ones  to  have  them  believed  by  rational  and  in- 
telligent minds,  is  not  only  manifest  to  such  rational 
minds,  but  is  proved  by  their  actual  and  almost  universal 
rejection  by  the  intelligent  men  who  .knew  both  him  and 
his  witnesses,  and  who  were  even  feverishly  anxious  to 
hail  him  as  Messiah  and  King  had  he  satisfied  them  of 
his  powers  and  pretensions.  One  grand  imposing  and 
indubitable  miracle,  performed  as  an  express  test  before 
the  assembled  priests,  the  Sanhedrim  and  the  multitude 
in  the  Jewish  Temple,  would  have  done  the  work — would 
have  opened  the  hearts  and  arms  of  every  Jew  from  the 
Thames  to  the  Ganges. 


THE    PROMULGATORS    OF    THE    EVIDENCE.         15! 

But  we  have  not  been  permitted  to  have  even  the 
guaranty  of  these  original  promulgators  of  the  "  Story 
of  Jesus."  It  is  only  the  disturbed  and  distorted  echoes 
of  their  disjointed  and  discordant  rumors  which  now 
reach  us  through  our  present  copies  and  translations  of 
the  Gospels.  Even  as  they  now  stand  those  Gospels 
neither  constitute,  nor  purport  to  be,  a  history  of  either 
Jesus  or  of  his  teachings.  We  have  only  what  purports 
to  be  fragmentary  and  disjointed  accounts  of  his  acts  and 
sayings  during  brief  periods  of  his  life,  written  without 
order  or  chronological  sequence  ;  while  even  these  frag- 
ments of  his  conversations  and  doings  are  not  only  of 
unknown  and  contested  authorship,  but  have  unquestion- 
ably suffered  from  interpolations,  alterations,  miscopy- 
ings  and  mistranslations. 


It  was  not  upon  the  New  Testament  writings  that 
the  Church  was  founded,  for  they  were  written  for 
the  already  existing  churches,  or  individual  Christians, 
long  after  they  were  established  ;  while  the  New  Testa- 
ment canon  was  not  established  until  centuries  after  the 
crucifixion.  Christ  never  left  a  syllable  in  writing,  nor 
did  he  ever  instruct  others  to  write.  His  own  efforts 
were  verbal,  and  his  sole  instructions  were  to  "preach 
his  gospel."  It  was  upon  the  verbal  statements  of  the 
Apostles,  and  those  whom  they  instructed,  that  the 
churches  were  founded ;  and  for  more  than  a  century 
the  Church  was  governed  by  oral  declarations  and  tradi- 
tions almost  exclusively. 


152  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

The  multitude  of  absurd,  childish  and  conflicting 
stories  which  spring  from,  or  were  attached  to,  the  name 
of  Jesus  after  his  supposed  resurrection,  would  scarcely 
be  credible,  in  our  day,  to  those  who  are  unfamiliar  with 
the  history  of  similar  religions  and  with  the  myth  and 
legend-making  proclivities  of  peopleSj — especially  during 
the  earlier  phases  of  their  development.  We  find  that 
they  spontaneously,  as  it  were,  sprung  up,  like  wild 
weeds,  around  the  name  of  Jesus,  or  were  adopted  and 
attached  to  it  from  older  myths  and  legends  ;  and  quite 
as  freely  as  in  the  case  of  all  other  founders  of  religions  or 
other  famous  wonder-workers.  During  the  plastic  period 
of  the  first  ages  of  Christianity  her  legend-factories  and 
myth-furnaces  were  kept,  if  possible,  more  busy  than 
those  of  the  Mahometans  and  Buddhists,  and  with  no  less 
prolific  and  grotesque  results. 


Before  the  end  of  the  second  century  vast  numbers 
of  these  disjointed,  marvellous  and  childish  narratives 
grew  into  something  like  continuous  myths,  legends  and 
stories,  and  were  then  partially  reduced  to  writing  under 
various  pretences,  and  became  known  under  distinct 
names.  Great  numbers  of  Gospels,  and  still  greater 
numbers  of  epistles — (most  of  which  were  claimed  to 
have  been  written  by,  and  bore  the  name  of,  some  of  the 
apostles  or  early  disciples,)  were  set  afloat  upon  the  great 
tide  of  popular  beliefs.  Whether  an  epistle  or  book  was 
genuine  or  a  forgery  was  little  inquired  into,  and  its  au- 
thenticity and  authority  were  asserted  or  denied  rather 
with  reference  to  its  effect  upon  the  existing  doctrines 


THE    PROMULGATORS    OF    THE    EVIDENCE.         153 

and  beliefs  of  the  speaker  than  from  any  special  knowl- 
edge or  care  as  to  the  real  facts.  Many  of  the  Gospels 
current  in  those  early  days  were  by  no  means  so  reticent 
upon  the  early  history  of  Jesus  and  his  mother  as  are 
those  whose  mutilated  remains  have  come  down  to  us. 
The  same  ignorant  and  superstitious  spirit  which  had 
thrown  the  halo  of  the  Marvellous  and  Divine  about  his 
later  life,  did  not  fail  to  illuminate  his  infancy  and  boy- 
hood with  equally  glaring  stage-lights.  They  narrated, 
with  equal  dogmatic  simplicity,  the  miracles  which 
adorned  those  early  years  of  his  life  as  they  did  those  of 
his  manhood.  They  gravely  tell  us  that  his  very  swad- 
dling-clothes, or  baby-linen,  like  some  divine  fetich,  un- 
consciously performed  some  most  wonderful  miracles ; 
that  the  mud-birds  which  he  formed  when  a  boy  at  play 
so  far  outstripped  those  of  his  play-fellows  as  to  take  to 
wings  and  fly ;  that  while  he  was  working  at  his  trade 
under  his  father,  Joseph  received  an  order  from  the  King 
of  Jerusalem  to  make  him  a  throne,  and  that  after  work- 
ing upon  it  for  two  years,  and  setting  it  into  its  place,  it 
was  found  to  be  decidedly  too  small  to  fill  the  space  it  was 
to  occupy, — greatly  to  the  alarm  of  the  old  carpenter ; 
— but  that  Jesus  bade  him  to  be  comforted,  and  to  take 
hold  of  one  side  of  the  throne  and  pull,  while  he  himself 
pulled  at  the  other  side ;  and  that,  upon  doing  so,  the 
throne  obeyed  and  was  stretched  to  the  proper  dimen- 
sions ;  and,  also,  that  Jesus  had  actually  spoken  in  his 
cradle  and  declared  himself  the  "  Son  of  God,"  and  other 
like  wonderful  things  ;  all  of  which  are  now  kept  care- 
fully out  of  sight.  There  was  also  the  "  Gospel  of  Mary," 
in  which  the  mother  figures  almost  as  miraculously  as 
her  son. 


154  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

In  fact  the  number  and  extent  of  the  forgeries,  alter- 
ations and  interpolations,  and  of  the  sheer  inventions, 
myths  and  lies  became  so  great  during  the  first  few  cen- 
turies of  the  Christian  era  that  all  definite  conception  of 
the  life  and  sayings  of  Jesus  become  impossible  ;  and 
the  Church  was  rent  by  many  conflicting  doctrines 
and  schisms.  These  various  and  variously  mutilated 
gospels  and  epistles  were  severally  held  by  different 
churches  and  individuals  in  Asia,  Africa  and  Europe, 
and  were  received  with  various  degrees  of  credit  or  in- 
credulity by  those  who  possessed  them  or  copies  of 
them  ; — each  judging  for  themselves  without  ecclesi- 
astical or  conscientious  restraint. 

As  there  was  neither  paper  nor  printing  in  those 
days  the  whole  of  these  documents  were  in  manuscript, 
written  upon  "the  fragile  papyrus.  Under  the  conditions 
of  travel  and  intercourse  among  the  early  churches  it 
took  a  long  time  for  these  successive  productions  to  find 
their  way,  in  the  form  of  copies,  to  all  the  churches,  and 
still  longer  for  the  churches  to  form  and  interchange 
their  various  and  conflicting  opinions  about  their  gen- 
uineness and  value.  Nor  was  the  necessity  for  a  com- 
mon understanding  of  them  then  deemed  of  so  much 
importance  as  it  would  now,  since,  among  other  reasons, 
they  still  used  and  chiefly  relied  upon  the  oral  traditions, 
and  were  in  constant  expectation  of  the  second  coming 
of  Jesus  himself,  and  had  never  been  taught  to  expect- 
any  inspired  or  uninspired  writings  concerning  him,  nor 
to  have  any  special  or  exclusive  reverence  for  such  as 
had  been  written.  And  when  the  oral  traditions  grew 
more  doubtful  and  controverted,  the  Church  writings 


THE    PROMULGATORS    OF    THE    EVIDENCE.         155 

were  only  used  in  common  with,  and  in  aid  of,  the  tradi- 
tions. 

As  the  conflicts  increased  with  regard  to  traditions 
and  doctrines,  the  favorite  gospels  and  epistles  gained  a 
more  marked  and  exclusive  ascendancy  over  the  whole 
or  certain  churches.  But  it  is  never  to  be  overlooked 
that,  during  those  first  ages,  the  only  "  sacred  scriptures  " 
known  or  recognized  among  Christians  was  the  old  Jew- 
ish Scriptures.  No  one,  during  the  age  of  the  Apostles, 
dreamed  of  calling  the  pastoral  or  personal  letters  of 
Paul,  or  a  narrative  by  Matthew,  by  the  sacred  name, — 
"Scripture;" — and  certainly  the  Apostles  and  writers 
themselves  never  claimed  them  to  rank  as  such.  Those 
early  writings,  whether  now  considered  canonical  or  un- 
canonical,  were  generally  called  forth  by  special  circum- 
stances, and  were  most  of  them  written  for  the  special 
Benefit  of  certain  races,  churches  or  individuals,  or  to 
affect  some  opinions  or  controversies  among  them ;  and 
were,  upon  their  face,  generally  directed  to  those  for 
whom  they  were  intended.  The  special  object  of  those 
not  so  directed  is  very  generally  known  and  conceded. 
The  Gospel,  so-called,  of  Matthew  was  written  for  the 
special  benefit  of  the  Jews  ;  that  of  Mark  more  especially 
for  the  Gentiles  ;  Luke's,  expressly  for  one  Theophilus, 
with  a  view  to  enlighten  him  as  to  those  things  which 
were  "most  surely  believed"  among  the  Christians*; 
John's  Gospel,  for  the  purpose  of  affecting  certain  con- 
troverted doctrines  ;  mainly,  it  would  seem,  to  establish 
the  physical  nature  and  sufferings  of  Jesus  and  his 
eternal  sonship  and  oneness  with  the  Father  ;  while  the 
epistles  themselves  show  to  whom,  and  for  what,  they 


156  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

were  written,  being  mere  pastoral  or  friendly  letters  to 
churches  or  individuals,  and  were  neither  considered  nor 
treated  as  specially  inspired  or  infallible  by  the  writers 
or  receivers.  For  centuries  the  books  now  received  as 
canonical  stood  side-by-side  with  those  which  are  now 
denounced  as  apocryphal,  and  indiscriminately  shared 
with  them  the  confidence  of  the  various  churches  ; — all, 
however,  in  different  and  varying  degrees,  according  to 
the  inclinations  and  views  of  their  readers.  Some  of  the 
apocryphal  books  were  long  credited  and  quoted,  while 
some  of  our  canonical  ones  were  equally  long  discred- 
ited. Much,  indeed,  of  our  own  supposed  knowledge  of 
scriptural  characters  comes  from  those  discarded  books. 
Where  there  were  differences  in  the  credit  awarded  to 
those  early  writings,  they  were  differences  in  degree  and 
not  in  kind.  It  was  not  because  one  was  deemed  in- 
spired, and  another  not ;  but  only  such  differences  in 
confidence  as  Methodists  might  now  have  between  the 
conflicting  opinions  and  writings  of  Mr.  Wesley  and 
Lorenzo  Dow,  or  Whitefield. 

It  was  only  in  after  centuries  that  it  was  thought 
necessary  to  form  a  select  and  authoritative  canon  of  the 
New  Testament,  nor  did  the  rejected  books  ever  cease 
to  be  regarded  as  valuable  and  trustworthy  sources  of 
information  by  the  great  mother  Church  of  Rome  ; 
while  the  founder  of  Protestantism  went  so  far  as  to 
reject  some  half  dozen  of  the  books  now  in  our  canon. 
To  accept  the  authorities  respected  by  ancient  Christians 
would  be  deemed  heretical  by  present  Orthodoxy ;  to 
deny  the  inspiration  of  those  rejected  by  Luther  would 
damn  us  as  infidels. 


THE    PROMULGATORS    OF    THE    EVIDENCE.         157 

To  those  who  look  upon  this  selected  lot  of  books  or 
writings  as  the  "  Word  of  Life,"  and  who  would  deem 
an  autograph  of  one  of  the  apostles  of  incalculable  value, 
it  would  seem  not  a  little  strange  that  the  early  Chris- 
tians made  no  effort  to  transmit  to  posterity  the  original, 
or,  at  least,  an  indubitable  copy  of  this  priceless  treasure. 
Had  their  opinions  and  means  been  those  of  our  ortho- 
dox Christians  they  would  doubtless  have  done  so,  or 
were  the  writings  of  such  divine  origin  and  actual  value 
as  they  are  deemed  to  be,  they  would  undoubtedly  have 
been  inspired  to  do  so  by  the  Divine  Inspirer  of  the 
books.  There  are  several  reasons  for  this  singular  ne- 
glect. Firstly  :  there  was  the  wholly  inferior  regard  for 
both  the  originals  and  their  authors  which  the  early 
Christians  possessed,  as  is  shown  even  by  the  books 
themselves.  On  this  subject,  Smith's  Bible  Dictionary 
says, — "The  original  copies  soon  perished.  *  *  It  is 
certainly  remarkable  that  in  controversies,  at  the  close 
of  the  second  century,  which  often  turned  upon  disputed 
readings  of  Scripture,  no  appeals  were  made  to  the  apos- 
tolic originals.  *  *  The  practice  of  verbal  quotations 
from  the  New  Testament  was  not  prevalent.  *  * 
The  evangelical  citations  in  the  Apostolic  Fathers  and 
Justin  Martin  show  that  the  oral  tradition  was  still  as 
widely  current  as  the  written  Gospels,  and  there  is  not 
in  those  writers  one  express  citation  from  the  other  Apos- 
tolic books.  *  *  On  all  accounts  it  seems  reasonable 
to  conclude  that  the  autographs  perished  during  that 
solemn  pause  whictf followed  the  Apostolic  Age  in  which 
the  idea  of  a  Christian  canon  parallel  with  and  supple- 
mentary to  the  Jewish  canon  was  first  distinctly  realized" 
This  is  a  very  manifest  reason  why,  prior  to  this  idea  of 


158  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

supplementary  canon,  Christians  were  careless  of  pre- 
serving those  early  writings.  They  were  not  then  re- 
garded  inspired  Scripture  as  they  are  now. 

Secondly :  The  men  who  familiarly  knew  and  heard 
the  Apostles  themselves — who  were  conversant  with 
their  ideas,  tempers  and  human  frailties — who  saw  them 
differ,  wrangle  and  angrily  disagree,  not  only  on  personal 
matters,  but  on  church  xloctrines — who  saw  the  "Apostle 
of  the  Gentiles "  flatly  refusing  to  be  accompanied  by 
the  "  Evangelist  of  the  Gentiles,"  and,  after  an  exciting 
controversy,  separating  in  high  dudgeon  from  Barnabas 
for  insisting  on  his  doing  so — who  saw  the  same  doughty 
Apostle  when  he  "  withstood  Peter  to  his  face  " — such 
men,  we  say,  were  not  accustomed  either  to  calling  them 
Saints  or  of  regarding  them  as  infallible  or  inspired. 
Even  Paul  was  constantly  put  upon  his  own  defence, 
both  personally  and  apostolically,  in  the  different 
churches,  as  we  see  by  his  own  epistles  to  them.  The 
hallowing  mists  of  nineteen  centuries  had  not  then,  as 
now,  illuminated  their  brows  with  the  aureola  of  sanctity 
and  of  inspired  infallibility. 

Thirdly  :  During  those  first  ages  the  belief  in  the 
imminent  reappearance  of  Jesus  in  his  glory,  and  of  the 
destruction  of  the  World  was  universal,  and  all  Chris- 
tians stood  in  constant  expectation  of  this  "  second  ad- 
vent" and  final  mundane  catastrophy.  This,  Jesus 
himself  had  expressly  taught  them  to  expect  and  believe. 
It  was  no  vague  anticipation  of  the  more  visionary  be- 
lievers, based  upon  constructions  of  ancient,  figurative 
and  mystic  prophecies,  but  a  universal,  undoubting  faith, 


THE    PROMULGATORS    OF    THE    EVIDENCE.          159 

based  upon  the  recent  plain  and  unequivocal  assurances 
of  Jesus  himself.  Jesus  himself  believed  it.  The  Apos- 
tles who  heard  it  from  his  own  lips  never  for  a  moment 
doubted  either  his  meaning  or  the  certainty  of  the  pre- 
dicted and  impending  fact.  Life  had  but  two  grand  ob- 
jects for  them — to  spread  the  "  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom," 
and  to  "  keep  their  garments  unspotted,"  and  their  "  lights 
trimmed  and  burning"  for  the  coming  "bridegroom." 
They  had  been  assured  by  their  Master  that  these 
stupendous  events  were  approaching  them  "like  a  thief 
in  the  night ;  " — that  the  world  was  tottering  to  its  fall 
like  a  whitening  harvest  field  ;  and  that,  at  any  moment, 
but  certainly  within  the  lifetime  of  that  generation,  it 
would  give  place  to  a — "  New  Heaven  and  a  new  Earth." 
So  deeply  rooted  was  the  confidence  in  this  express  pre- 
diction of  Jesus  that,  after  the  utmost  limit  for  the  nat- 
ural life  of  that  generation  had  long  been  passed,  the 
faith  refused  to  die  with  the  fact,  and  the  pious  devotees 
wove  for  themselves  a  gossamer  legend  about  the  mirac- 
ulous prolongation  of  the  life  of  St.  John,  who  had  been 
the  last  survivor  of  the  generation  of  Jesus.  It  was  not 
until  the  final  triumph  of  the  Church  under  Constantine 
that  the  minds  of  Christians  began  to  be  diverted  from 
this  belief, — only,  however,  to  suffer  from  spasmodic  re- 
vivals of  millennial  expectancy  from  age  to  age  ever 
since  ; — our  gravest  divines  being,  even  now,  in  special 
convention  upon  the  question  of  the  "  second  advent." 
Why,  then,  should  men  in  such  hourly  expectancy  of  the 
end  of  the  world  and  of  the  presence  of  Jesus  himself  be 
expected  to  provide  evidence  about  Jesus  for  future  gen- 
erations— generations  which  could  never  exist,  or  exist 
only  in  the  presence  of  Jesus  himself. 


I6O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

That  Jesus  himself  was  responsible,  both  for  this  be- 
lief in  the  imminence  of  this  general  destruction  of  the 
existing  material  universe,  and  for  this  Christian  indif- 
ference to  specific  written  evidence  and  to  its  future 
preservation,  is  certain — certain  as  the  language  of  the 
New  Testament  can  make  it.  He  neither  wrote  a  line, 
nor  instructed  others  to  write  ;  but  confined  his  instruc- 
tions exclusively  to  verbal  preaching.  He  instructed  his 
disciples  to  live  in  common,  and  to  make  no  preparation 
for  the  future  ;  to  "  let  every  day  provide  for  itself."  He 
taught  them  to  "  do  quickly,"  and  be  on  constant  guard, 
as  the  Night  and  End  approached.  He  taught  them 
that  that  generation  was  to  see  the  last  of  the  old  world 
— that  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  was  near  at  hand, 
and  that  the  end  of  the  World  would  immediately  follow. 
Let  any  unbiased  mind  remember  his  general  teaching, 
and  then  interpret  his  assertions  on  this  latter  point,  to 
be  found  in  the  24th  chap,  of  Matthew  and  the  2ist 
chap,  of  Luke,  and  he  will  find  that  it  is  impossible  to 
construe  his  clearly  expressed  meaning  in  any  other 
manner  than  it  was  understood  by  his  apostles.  If  he 
did  not  so  mean,  then  his  disciples  were  not  inspired  to 
comprehend  him,  nor  was  he  capable  of  making  himself 
comprehensible.  It  will  be  found  that  his  disciples  came 
to  him,  when  they  had  all  retired  from  the  city  to  the 
Mount  of  Olives,  and  soon  after  had  been  predicting  the 
destruction  of  the  Temple  ;  and  asked  him,  privately,  to — 
"  tell  them  when  these  things  should  be."  But  this  alone 
would  not  satisfy  them,  since  the  fact  of  his  teaching  the 
destruction  of  the  Temple  would  suggest  to  the  Jewish 
mind  the  speedy  consummation  and  end  of  all  mundane 
affairs  ;  and  they,  therefore,  asked  him  further — "  and 


THE    PROMULGATORS    OF    THE    EVIDENCE.         l6l 

what  shall  be  the  sign  of  thy  coming  and  of  the  end  of  the 
World"  There  is  no  uncertainty  and  ambiguity  about 
this  question.  The  two  questions  were  separate,  dis- 
tinct and  unmistakable.  Jesus  might  have  declined  to 
answer,  but  "he  coulxl  not  misunderstand  it.  He,  in  fact, 
neither  affected  to  misunderstand  them,  nor  declined  to 
answer  both  their  full  questions  in  their  palpable  mean- 
ing as  put.  In  doing  this,  it  will  be  seen  that  he  recites 
the  troubles  which  shall  precede  these  events,  the  dan- 
gers that  shall  menace  themselves,  the  arising  of  pre- 
tenders and  false  prophets,  the  fact  of  his  gospel  being 
preached  to  all  the  world  (as  he  had  commanded  them), 
and  then  warns  them  that  should  be  in  Judea  that, 
when  the  "  abomination  of  desolation  "  should  "  stand  in 
the  Holy  Place,"  to  flee  to  the  mountains.  He  then  pre- 
dicts the  coming  woes  and  final  fall  of  Jerusalem.  That 
all  this  refers  to  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  and  completes  the 
prophecy  as  to  her,  is  rendered  still  more  manifest,  if  that 
were  needed  or  possible,  by  the  same  declaration  as  it 
appears  in  Luke, — namely  :  that  when  they  should  "  see 
Jerusalem  compassed  about  with  armies,  then  know  that 
the  desolation  thereof "is  nigh."  After  having  given  this 
detailed  and  completed  account  of  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem,  he  goes  on  further  to  answer  the  remainder  of 
their  question  as  to  his  own  second  coming  and  the  end  of 
the  world,  and  says — "  immediately  after  the  tribulation 
of  those  days,  shall  the  sun  be  darkened  and  the  moon 
shall  not  give  her  light,  and  the  stars  shall  fall  from 
Heaven,  and  the  powers  of  the  Heavens  shall  be  shaken, 
and  then  shall  appear  the  sign  of  the  Son  of  Man  in  Hea- 
ven ;  and  then  shall  «//the  tribes  of  the  Earth  mourn,  and 
they  shall  see  the  Son  of  Man  coming  in  the  clouds  of 

ii 


l62  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

Heaven  with  Power  and  great  glory.  And  he  shall  send 
his  angels  with  a  great  sound  of  trumpet,  and  they  shall 
gather  together  his  elect  from  the  four  winds,  from  one 
end  of  the  Heavens  to  the  other.  Now  learn  a  parable  of 
the  fig  tree :  when  his  branch  is  yet  tender  and  putteth 
forth  leaves,  ye  know  that  summer  is  nigh  :  so  likewise, 
when  ye  shall  see  all  these  things  know  that  it  is  nigh 
even  at  the  doors.  Verily  I  say  unto  you  this  generation 
shall  not  pass  till  all  these  things  be  fulfilled"  He 
then  solemnly  declares  that  Heaven  and  Earth  might 
pass  away,  but  that  these  his  words  should  not  pass 
away ;  but  admits  that  he  himself  does  not  know  the 
exact  "day  and  hour"  of  their  fulfilment.  It  was  im- 
possible for  these  Apostles  to  have  put  any  other  con- 
struction upon  this  language  than  they  did,  for  it  will 
bear  no  other — indeed  clearly  excludes  all  other.  It  is 
only  after  it  has  been  so  overwhelmingly  demonstrated 
that  the  Prophet  was  mistaken,  that  men  perforce  content 
themselves  to  assume,  in  defiance  of  the  resistless  certain- 
ty of  the  language  and  intent,  that  the  prophecy  cannot 
mean  what  it  says,  because  the  Prophet  could  not  have 
been  so  mistaken.  All  unbiased  minds,  however,  must 
see,  both  from  the  plain  terms  of  the  prophecy  and  the 
preceding  and  subsequent  declarations  and  Lci.efs,  that 
Jesus  meant,  and  his  apostles  understood  him  to  mean, 
that  his  own  second  advent  and  the  destruction  of  the 
world  would  happen  during  the  lifetime  of  that  generation 
and  immediately  after  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  and  they 
were  themselves  to  "see"  and  judge  of  the  signs  and 
fulfilment  of  the  prophecy.  This  view  is  confirmed,  also, 
by  the  reply  of  Jesus  to  Peter  concerning  the  future  end 
of  John : — "  If  I  will  that  he  tarry  till  I  come,  what  is 


THE    PROMULGATORS    OF   THE    EVIDENCE.         163 

that  to  thee,"  which  shows  that  he  himself  contemplated 
a  return  in  that  generation ;  nor  did  this  suggestion  of 
John's  living  till  he  come  excite  the  surprise  or  inquiry 
upon  the  part  of  his  disciples. 


We  have  dwelt  at  some  length  upon  these  views  of 
Jesus  and  his  Apostles,  touching  the  end  of  the 
World,  by  reason  of  their  influence  upon  the  nature  of 
the  evidence  which  they  actually  transmitted  to  the 
Future,  as  well  as  of  their  failure  to  transmit  better  evi- 
dence. If  Jesus  were  what  he  is  claimed  to  have  been, 
he  would  have  had  the  foresight  and  power  to  have 
furnished  incontestible  evidence  of  his  life,  labors  and 
doctrines,  and,  as  he  made  a  belief  in  him  a  condition  of 
salvation,  it  was  his  plain  duty  to  have  so  ordered  it  as 
to  have  furnished  to  future  generations  the  most  reliable 
and  perfect  evidence  of  that  which  they  were  required  to 
believe.  And  no,  even  human,  founder  of  a  religion 
would  have  shown  so  total  and  fatal  a  disregard  of  these 
things  as  did  Jesus,  unless  he  had  also  believed  with 
Jesus  that  there  would  be  no  future  generations  to  need 
them.  No  frank  and  fearless  man  will  deny  either  that 
our  sources  of  evidence  in  relation  to  the  life  and  sayings 
of  Jesus  are  lamentably  defective,  or  will  fail  to  perceive 
that  Jesus  himself,  by  the  character  of  his  selections  of 
witnesses,  and  by  his  general  conduct,  instructions  and 
teachings,  was  primarily  and  chiefly  responsible  for  this 
deficiency  and  reliability  of  the  proofs. 


164  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

Having  thus  briefly  considered  the  character  of  the 
witnesses  and  personal  followers  which  Jesus  selected — of 
the  men  and  women  who  were  the  primary  and  chief 
promulgators  of  the  facts  and  stories  which  formed  the 
basis  of  the  narratives  in  our  New  Testament  and  which 
engendered  the  myths  and  legends  which  were  nurtured 
by  primitive  Christianity,  Let  us  now  glance  at  the 
origin,  character,  preservation  and  value  of  the 
Canon  of  Scripture  or — 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT. 

We  have  seen  that,  during  the  primitive  ages  of 
Christianity,  there  was  no  New  Testament  Scriptures, 
nor  any  writing  recognized  as  inspired  or  as  Holy 
Scripture  save  the  old  Jewish  Scriptures ;  that  none 
were  deemed  necessary,  and  that  the  Apostles  and 
their  immediate  successors  recognized  nbne  such,  nor 
ever  suggested  the  adoption  of  any  writings  as  such. 
We  have  seen,  -on  the  contrary,  that  whatever  was 
written,  said  or  reported  by  any  Christian  was  taken 
into  account  as  a  common  fund  or  source  of  informa- 
tion, and  were  severally  regarded  and  graded  by  each 
Church  and  reader  according  to  their  own  special 


THE    PROMULGATORS    OF    THE  EVIDENCE.         165 

estimate  of  their  genuineness  and  worth ;  and  that 
the  main  dependence  of  the  Church  during  a  num- 
ber of  generations,  was  the  oral  teachings  and  tra- 
ditions of  the  Church  —  a  practice  still  maintained 
by  the  Mother  Church  of  Rome.  It  was  not  until 
the  hourly  and  all-absorbing  expectancy  of  the  second 
coming  of  Jesus  and  of  the  destruction  of  the  World 
had  grown  less  confident  and  intense — not  until  the 
written  narratives  and  epistles  had  degenerated  into  a 
confused  jumble,  full  of  silly  stories  and  conflicting 
testimony,  preserved  in  unauthenticated  and  unreliable 
copies  scattered  through  the  Churches,  and  the  oral 
traditions  had  become  obscure  and  conflicting — not 
until  near  a  hundred  conflicting  sects  had  sprung  up  in 
the  bosom  of  the  Church  and  were  nurtured  by  food 
drawn  from  this  chaos  of  conflicting  testimony — not 
until  different  Churches  and  individuals  were  in  angry 
feuds  about  both  evidence  and  doctrines,  and  the  warring 
sectaries  were  rending  the  very  bowels  of  the  Church, 
making  the  cities  of  the  Empire  scenes  of  carnage  and 
assassination,  and  producing  a  reign  of  violence  and 
crime  which  already  threatened  that  demoralization  and 
disruption  of  society  which  paved  the  way  for  the  over- 
throw of  ancient  civilization  and  the  initiation  of  the 
"Dark  Ages" — not  until  the  fanatical  world-storming 
was  over  and  a  Christian  Emperor  sat  upon  the  throne 
of  the  Caesars  witnessing  triumphant  Christianity  rend 
itself,  and  deploring  the  disgraceful  puerility  of  narra- 
tives and  the  uncertainty  and  discord  of  the  evidences 
and  doctrines  of  the  Church  which  he  had  found  it  his 
interest  to  adopt — not  until  the  fourth  century  after  the 
birth  of  Jesus  and  after  all  these  things  had  come  to 


166  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

pass,  was  it  resolved,  through  political  authority,  to 
secure  some  more  definite  announcement  of  church 
doctrines  ;  nor  was  it  until  near  the  beginning  of  the 
fifth  century  that  the  Canon  of  the  New  Testament  was 
decreed  and  established  by  a  majority  vote  of  the  Coun- 
cil of  Carthage. 


Even  under  the  most  favorable  light  this  vote  at  the 
Council  of  Carthage  was  a  singular  and  questionable 
affair.  A  strange  scene  to  rational  men  that — of  several 
hundred  disputing  and  angry  controversialists,  belonging 
to  a  superstitious,  factious  and  corrupt  age,  meeting  to- 
gether amidst  intrigue,  excitement  and  even  danger,  to 
decide  by  a  majority  vote  which  should  be  or  was,  and 
what  was  not  or  should  not  be,  the  "  Word  of  God,"  and 
to  give  an  authoritative  and  final  religion  to  the  Worldi— to 
fix  the  boundaries  of  human  belief,  to  be  guarded  by  perse- 
cution here,  and  eternal  torments  hereafter!  But  when 
we  honestly  and  fearlessly  reflect  upon  the  character 
and  situation  of  the  men  who  thus  attempted  to  finally 
decide  these  momentous  questions,  involving  God  and 
man,  time  and  eternity — when  we  reflect,  further,  that 
persons  and  incidents  about  whom,  and  whose  evidence, 
they  were  to  decide  had  been  in  their  graves  for  hun- 
dreds of  years,  that  no  original  evidence  whatever  had 
ever  reached  them,  nor  perhaps  even  a  copy-of-a-copy  of 
any  one  of  the  many  conflicting  narratives  or  epistles  of 
the  First  Age,  that  they  knew  that  it  had  been  boldly 
charged  and  counter-charged  that  original  writings,  even 


THE    PROMULGATORS    OF    THE    EVIDENCE.         l6/ 

such  as  there  had  been,  had  been  grossly  and  intention- 
ally tampered  with,  as  well  as  often  changed  to  compel 
a  greater  correspondence  between  them  or  to  suit  the 
peculiar  views  and  doctrines  'of  the  warring  Churches 
and  sectaries — when  we  reflect,  still  further,  how  in- 
competent, unworthy  and  even  infamous  were  many  of 
the  Councils  of  those  early  times,  how  impossible  it  was 
for  the  Council  of  Carthage  to  secure  the  means  of 
correcting  errors  or  of  establishing  the  real  truths  and 
facts  which  they  decided  upon — when  we  reflect  upon  all 
this,  and  more,  we  cannot  but  wonder  at  the  audacity  of 
the  men  who  dared  to  assume  such  authority  and  re- 
sponsibility— or  rather  should  wonder,  if  we  did  not 
know  that  nothing  could  be  deemed  audacious  or  pre- 
sumptuous in  the  priesthood  of  a  supernatural  religion 
when  dealing  with  the  superstitions  of  the  people. 

It  is  so  important  to  understand  the  men  who,  by  a 
majority  vote  like  a  parliament  or  political  caucus,  de- 
cided for  us  what  was  the  Word  of  God,  that  I  beg  to 
quote  from  Lecky's  History  of  European  Morals  (com- 
mencing page  206,  vol.  2,)  the  following  language  "  Ac- 
cording to  the  popular  belief,  all  who  differed  from  the 
teaching  of  the  orthodox  lived  under  the  hatred  of  the 
Almighty,  and  were  destined  after  death  for  an  eternity 
of  anguish.  Very  naturally,  therefore,  they  were  wholly 
alienated  from  the  true  believers,  and  no  moral  or  intel- 
lectual excellence  could  atone  for  their  crime  in  pro- 
pagating error.  The  eighty  or  ninety  sects  into  which 
Christianity  speedily  divided,  hated  one  another  with 
an  intensity  that  extorted  the  wonder  of  Julian  and  the 
ridicule  of  the  Pagans  of  Alexandria,  and  the  fierce  riots 


168  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

and  persecutions  that  hatred  produced  appear  in  every 
page  of  Ecclesiastical  history.  There  is,  indeed,  some- 
thing at  once  grotesque  and  ghastly  in  the  spectacle. 
The  Donatists,  having  separated  from  the  Orthodox 
simply  on  the  question  of  the  validity  of  the  consecration 
of  a  certain  Bishop,  declared  that  all  who  accepted  the 
Orthodox  view  must  be  damned,  refused  to  perform  their 
rites  in  the  orthodox  churches  which  they  had  seized, 
till  they  had  burnt  the  altar  and  scraped  the  wood,  beat 
multitudes  to  death  with  clubs,  blinded  others  by 
anointing  their  eyes  with  lime,  filled  Africa,  during 
near  two  centuries,  with  war  and  desolation,  and  con- 
tributed largely  to  its  final  ruin.  The  childish  and 
almost  unintelligible  quarrels  between  the  Homoiousians 
and  the  Homoousians,  between  those  who  maintained 
that  the  nature  of  Christ  was  like  that  of  the  Father  and 
those  who  manintained  that  it  was  the  same,  filled  the 
world  with  riot  and  hatred.  The  Catholics  tell  how  an 
Arian  Emperor  caused  eighty  orthodox  priests  to  be 
drowned  on  a  single  occasion ;  how  three  thousand  per- 
sons perished  in  the  riots  that  convulsed  Constantinople 
when  the  Arian  Bishop  Macedonius  superseded  the 
Athenasian  Paul ;  how  George  of  Cappadocia,  the  Arian 
Bishop  of  Alexandria  caused  the  widows  of  the  Athen- 
asian party  to  be  scourged  on  the  soles  of  their  feet,  the 
holy  virgins  to  be  stripped  naked,  to  be  flogged  with 
prickly  branches  of  palm  trees,  or  to  be  slowly  scorched 
over  fires  till  they  abjured  their  creed. 


"  The  triumph  of  the  Catholics  in  Egypt  was  acr 
companied  (if  we  may  believe  in  the  solemn  assertions 
of  eighty  Adrian  Bishops)  by  every  variety  of  plunder, 


THE    PROMULGATORS    OF    THE    EVIDENCE.         169 

murder,  sacrilege  and  outrage.  Arius  himself  was 
probably  poisoned  by  Catholic  hands.  The  followers  of 
St.  Cyril  of  Alexandria,  who  were  chiefly  monks,  filled 
their  city  with  riot  and  bloodshed,  wounded  the  prefect 
Orestes,  dragged  the  pure  and  gifted  Hypatia  into  one 
of  their  churches,  murdered  her,  tore  the  flesh  from  her 
bones  with  sharp  shells,  and,  having  stripped  her  body 
naked,  plunged  the  mangled  remains  into  the  flames.  In 
Ephesus,  during  the  contest  between  St.  Cyril  and  the 
Nestorians,  the  Cathedral  itself  was  the  theater  of  a 
fierce  and  bloody  conflict.  Constantinople,  on  the  occa- 
sion of  the  deposition  of  St.  Chrysostom,  was  for  several 
days  in  a  condition  of  absolute  anarchy.  After  the 
Council  of  Chalcedon,  Jerusalem  and  Alexandria  were 
again  convulsed,  and  the  bishop  of  the  latter  city  was 
murdered  in  his  baptistry.  About  fifty  years  later, 
when  the  Monophysite  Controversy  was  at  its  height, 
the  palace  of  the  Emperor  at  Constantinople  was 
blockaded,  the  churches  were  besieged,  and  the  streets 
commanded  by  furious  bands  of  contending  monks. 
Repressed  for  a  time,  the  riots  broke  out  two  years 
after  with  an  increased  ferocity,  and  almost  every  lead- 
ing city  of  the  East  was  filled  by  the  monks  with  blood- 
shed and  with  riots.  St.  Augustine  himself  is  accused 
of  having  excited  every  kind  of  popular  persecution 
against  the  semi-Pelagians.  The  Councils,  animated 
by  an  almost  frantic  hatred,  urged  on  by  their  anathemas 
the  rival  sects.  In  the  '  Robber  Council '  of  Ephesus, 
Flavinus,  the  bishop  of  Constantinople,  was  kickdti  and 
beaten  by  the  bishop  of  Alexandria,  or  at  least  by  his 
followers,  and  a  few  days  later  die"d  from  the  effect  of 
the.blows.  In  the  contested  election  that  issued  in  the 


I7O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

election  of  St.  Damascus  as  Pope  of  Rome,  though  no 
theological  question  appears  to  have  been  at  issue,  the 
riots  were  so  fierce,  that  one  hundred  and  thirty-seven 
corpses  were  found  in  one  of  the  churches.  The  prece- 
dent of  the  Jewish  persecutions  of  Idolatry  having  been 
already  adduced  by  St.  Cyprian,  in  the  third  century,  in 
favor  of  excommunication,  was  urged  by  Optatus,  in  the 
reign  of  Constantine,  in  favor  of  persecuting  the  Dona- 
tists ;  in  the  next  reign  we  find  a  large  body  of  Chris- 
tians presenting  to  the  Emperor  a  petition  based  upon 
this  precedent,  imploring  him  to  destroy  by  force  the 
Pagan  worship.  About  fifteen  years  later,  the  whole 
Christian  Church  was  prepared,  on  the  same  grounds, 
to  support  the  persecuting  policy  of  St.  Ambrose,  the 
contending  sects  having  found,  in  the  duty  of  crushing 
religious  liberty,  the  solitary  tenet  in  which  they  were 
agreed.  The  most  unaggressive  and  unobtrusive  forms 
of  Paganism  were  persecuted  with  the  same  ferocity. 
To  offer  a  sacrifice  was  to  commit  a  capital  offence  ;  to 
hang  up  a  simple  chaplet  was  to  incur  the  forfeiture  of 
an  estate.  The  noblest  works  of  Asiatic  architecture 
and  of  Greek  sculpture  perished  by  the  same  iconoclasm 
that  shattered  the  humble  temple  at  which  the  peasant 
loved  to  pray,  or  the  household  gods  which  consecrated 
his  home.  There  were  no  varieties  of  belief  too  minute 
for  the  new  intolerance  to  embitter.  The  question  of 
the  proper  time  of  celebrating  Easter  was  believed  to  in- 
volve the  issue  of  salvation  or  damnation  ;  and  when, 
long  tifter,  in  the  fourteenth  century,  the  question  of  the 
nature  of  light  at  the  transfiguration  was  discussed  at 
Constantinople,  those  who  refused  to  admit  that  that 
light  was  uncreated,  were  deprived  of  the  honors  of 


THE    PROMULGATORS    OF    THE    EVIDENCE.         17! 

Christian  burial.  Together  with  these  legislative  and 
ecclesiastical  measures,  a  literature  arose  surpassing  in 
its  mendacious  ferocity  any  other  the  world  had  ever 
known.  The  polemical  writers  habitually  painted  as 
demons  those  who  diverged  from  Orthodox  belief, 
gloated  with  vindictive  piety  over  the  sufferings  of  the 
heretic  on  earth,  as  upon  a  divine  punishment,  and 
sometimes,  with  almost  superhuman  malice,  passing  in 
imagination  beyond  the  threshold  of  the  grave,  exulted 
in  no  ambiguous  terms  on  the  tortures  which  they 
believed  to  be  reserved  for  him  forever."  Lecky  con- 
tinues in  a  citation  from  Julianus  of  Eclana  by  Dean 
Milman  as  follows : — "  Nowhere  is  Christianity  less 
attractive  than  in  her  Councils  of  the  Church.  *  *  * 
Intrigue,  injustice,  violence,  decisions  on  atithority  alone, 
and  that  the  authority  of  a  turbulent  majority.  .  .  .  de- 
tract from  the  reverence  and  impugn  the  judgments  of  at 
least  the  later  Councils.  The  close  is  almost  invariably  a 
terrible  anathema,  in  which  it  is  impossible  not  to  discern 
the  tones  of  human  hatred,  of  arrogant  triumph,  of  re- 
joicing at  the  damnation  imprecated  against  the  humil- 
iated adversary." 


This  pen-picture  of  the  men  and  times  who  determined 
upon  our  Canon  of  the  New  Testament,  and  formulated 
and  authoritatively  settled  the  creed  and  rites  of  Chris- 
tianity, involving  the  eternal  fate  of  Humanity,  by  a 
majority  vote  and  mere  self-asserted  authority,  defies  all 
comment  or  amendment.  It  would  be  difficult  to  em- 


1/2  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

hellish  it  without  descending  to  characteristics  below  the 
human.  One  can  only  stand  in  dumb  wonder  and 
humility  when  they  remember  that  these  were  the  ages 
of  the  "  Saints," — and  their  action  largely  the  work  of 
Saints  themselves,  and  that  the  faith  of  all  these  long 
succeeding  ages  together  with  the  blood  and  torture  of 
untold  millions  of  poor  ignorant  mortals  and  the  faith  in 
God  and  in  "  God's  Word"  and  the  life  and  death  hopes 
of  one  third  of  the  Human  Race  for  nineteen  centuries, 
— all  have  their  source  and  authority  in  such  a  fountain  ! 
a  fountain  which  was  foul  with  all  manner  of  ignorance, 
impurity,  selfishness,  hate,  vindictiveness,  cruelty  and 
superstition,  and  which  had  already  sapped  the  founda- 
tions of  ancient  civilization  and  was  fast  sinking  into 
the  depths  of  night  and  barbarism  ! — and  that  even  yet 
the  enlightened  descendants  of  those  suffering,  degraded 
and  degenerating  generations  still  cling  to  the  infalli- 
bility of  the  "  majority  votes  "  of  these  councils,  and  rest 
their  hopes  of  salvation,  and  fears  of  damnation  upon 
their  passionate,  turbulent  and  ignorant  decisions ! 


The  Canon  of  the  New  Testament  once  selected 
from  the  curious  and  discordant  mass  of  Gosples  and 
Epistles  which  had  been  accumulating  and  corrupting 
through  the  earlier  centuries  and  still  floating  in  un- 
verified and  unreliable  copies  through  the  churches,  and 
once  authoritatively  determined  by  the  majority  of  these 
"  holy  men  "  and  "  Sainted  fathers,"  it  would  be  taken 
for  granted  that  those  determining  the  matter,  would  at 


THE    PROMULGATORS    OF    THE    EVIDENCE.         173 

least  now  save  the  posterity  which  they  consigned  to 
damnation  for  any  refusal  to  accept  their  decrees,  from 
the  fatal  causes  of  error  and  discord  from  which  they 
themselves  had  suffered  and  had  met  to  heal ; — that  the 
Councils  would  at  least  have  attempted  to  secure  an  im- 
perishable text  of  their  newly  established  "  Scripture," 
under  the  guidance  of  their  divinely  inspired  wisdom, 
but  in  this  all-important  matter  their  divine  inspiration 
failed  them,  and  posterity  was  again  left  to  renewed  un- 
certainties. Multitudinous  errors  and  mutilations,  not 
only  continued  to  be  retained,  but  to  be  further  multi- 
plied and  propagated  as  before.  Under  the  title  "  New 
Testament "  in  Smith's  Bible  Dictionary,  we  are  told 
that : — "  Two  chief  causes  contributed  specially  to  cor- 
rupt the  texts  of  the  Gospels,  the  attempts  to  harmonize 
parallel  narratives,  and  the  influence  of  Tradition.  *  * 
The  former  assumed  a  special  importance  from  the  Dia- 
tressaron  of  Tation  (A.  D.  170)  and  the  latter,  which  was 
very  great  in  the  time  of  Justin  Martyr,  still  lingered. 
*  *  The  tendenc  at  Alexandria,  or  Carthage  was 
in  a  certain  direction,  and  neccessarily  influenced  the 
character  of  the  current  text  with  accumulative  force  as 
far  as  it  was  unchecked  by  other  influences.  This  is  a 
general  Jaw,  and  the  history  of  the  Apostolic  books  is 
no  exception  to  it.  All  experience  shows  that  certain 
types  of  variation  propagate  and  perpetuate  themselves, 
and  existing  documents  prove  that  it  was  so  with  the 
copies  of  the  New  Testament."  Yet,  even  these  earlier 
mutilated  and  interpolated  copies  have  not  reached  our 
time.  The  oldest  manuscript  copy  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment now  existing  or  known,  is  supposed  to  be  the  one 
found  at  Mount  Sinai  in  A.  D.  1 859.  Some  have  supposed 


174  •  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

that  this  document  dates  back  to  the  fourth  century 
— a  fact,  however,  which,  if  true,  could  give  no  possible 
assurance  of  its  own  reliability.  Besides  its  many 
other  variations  from  our  editions  and  other  ancient 
copies,  it  is  found  to  contain  two  books  which  are  un- 
known to  our  received  Bible.  Not  one  of  the  old 
manuscripts  agrees  with  any  other,  and  none  of  the 
oldest  copies  contain  the  complete  record  of  the  books 
as  we  have  it. 


With  regard  to  the  number  and  importance  of  the 
variations  in  the  ancient  manuscripts,  the  same  article 
quoted,  continues  thus  : — "  Having  surveyed  in  outline 
the. history  of  the  transmission  of  the  written  text,  and 
the  chief  characteristics  of  the  manuscripts  in  which  it 
is  preserved,  we  are  in  a  position  to  consider  the  extent 
and  nature  of  the  variations  which  exist  in  different 
copies.  It  is  impossible  to  estimate  the  number  of  these 
exactly,  but  they  cannot  be  less'  than  120,000  (!)  in  all, 
though  of  these  a  very  large  proportion  consist  of  differ- 
ences of  spelling  and  isolated  abbreviations  of  scribes, 
and  of  the  remainder  comparatively  few  alterations  are 
sufficiently  well  supported  as  to  create  reasonable  doubt 
as  to  the  final  judgment.  Probably  there  are  not  more 
than  sixteen  hundred  to  two  thousand  places  in  which 
the  true  reading  is  a  matter  of  uncertainty  (!)  Various 
readings  are  due  to  different  causes ;  some  arose  from 
accidental,  others  from  intentional  alterations  of  the 
original  text." 


THE    PROMULGATORS    OF    THE    EVIDENCE.         1/5 

With  no  copy  even  claimed  to  be  older  than  the 
fourth  century,  when  the  dust  of  ages  had  covered  the 
remains  of  the  eye-witnesses  and  mingled  with  the  dust 
of  their  perished  manuscripts,  after  all  the  various  and 
repeated  efforts  to  force  the  current  and  written  accounts 
of  the  original  facts  and  narratives  into  some  kind  of 
accord  and  consistency,  and  after  all  the  admitted  corrup- 
tions and  errors,  intentional  and  unintentional,  preced- 
ing our  oldest  copies,  with  not  a  copy  to  refer  to  of  a 
date  claimed  to  be  older  than  the  fourth  century — after 
all  this,  to  be  told  that  the  old  manuscripts  now  remain- 
ing, making  a  petty  volume  of  the  size  of  a  common 
spelling  book  with  less  than  8000  small  verses,  contain- 
ing our  "  Word  of  Life  "  and  only  hope  of  salvation, 
contain  differences  amounting  to  not  less  than  120,000 — 
nearly  one  for  evety  word,  and  that  there  is  only  one  dif- 
ference for  every  four  verses  which  is  of  serious  moment 
— only  1600  to  2000  in  all,  must  be  indeed  consoling  to 
those  who  can  appreciate  such  divine  care  and  provi- 
dence and  such  inspired  and  infallible  accuracy !  To 
duller  minds  such  facts  are  not  assuring. 


JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE    WRITTEN     GOSPELS,    THEIR     AUTHORS,    AND     THEIR 

VALUE. 

HAVING  formed  some  estimate  of  the  original  pro- 
mulgators  of  the  "Gospel  news"  and  of  the  men  and 
times  that  selected  and  decided  upon  the  books  compos- 
ing our  New  Testament  Canon,  as  well  as  the  degree  of 
authenticity  we  should  attach  to  it  as  a  whole,  it  is 
also  important  that  we  should  form  some  ideas  about 
the  authorship  and  reliability  of  the  several  accepted 
Gospels. 

In  attempting  this,  it  is  well  to  understand  at  once, 
that  these  Gospels,  after  having  been  subjected  to  all 
the  manipulations  and  changes  already  shown,  were 
selected,  in  their  then  form,  in  the  fifth  century  after 
Jesus,  from  the  large  number  of  other  Gospels  which 
had,  prior  thereto,  divided  with  them  the  confidence  of 
Christians.  It  was  possible  for  the  Council  to  have 
adopted  others,  or  to  have  rejected  these.  Let  us  under- 
stand, furthermore,  that  the  members  of  that  Council 
were  unquestionably  less  critically  informed  upon  the 
facts  decided  and  far  less  competent  to  decide  correctly 


THE   WRITTEN    GOSPELS.  177 

than  modern  scholars.  They  themselves  lived  hundreds 
of  years  after  the  events  narrated  and  really  knew  noth- 
ing about  the  authorship  of  the  Gospels  they  selected. 
They  had  neither  the  critical  capacity,  nor  adequate 
means,  for  a  correct  decision,  and  really  decided  upon 
their  selection,  not  by  reason  of  any  real  or  supposed 
knowledge  of  the  authorship  of  the  selected  works,  or  of 
their  genuineness  or  correctness,  but  because  the 
selected  narratives  suited  them  best.  They  both  adopted 
Gospels  written  by  unknown  men,  and,  at  best,  purport- 
ing to  be  "  according "  to  men  who  were  not  even 
Apostles,  and  rejected  others  which  purported  to  be 
according  to,  or  by,  some  of  the  Apostles  themselves. 
We  must  also  remember  that  the  present  titles  of  the 
Gospels  are  not  the  slightest  evidence  in  favor  of  their 
having  been  written  by  the  persons  named  in  their 
present  titles.  The  prefixing  of  these  titles  is  conceded 
to  have  been  done,  not  by  their  authors,  but  by  subse- 
quent and  unauthorized  parties  who  were  by  no  means 
better  informed  on  the  matter  than  ourselves.  Nor  do 
these  unauthorized  titles  pretend  to  show,  even  upon 
their  face,  who  were  the  authors,  nor  do  the  narratives 
themselves  purport  to  do  so.  Some  persons,  unknown, 
have  written  four  narratives,  now  purporting,  by  sub- 
sequently prefixed  titles,  to  be  "according"  to  certain 
persons, — that  is,  according  to  the  facts  as  held  and  re- 
lated by  them.  If  they  had  been  written  by  these  parties, 
why  not  have  directly  said  so,  since  there  could  be  no 
better  evidence  available  than  narratives  directly  written 
by  Matthew  and  John  ?  There  could  be  no  possible 
motive  for  failing  to  do  so,  nor  would  the  Apostles  have 
failed  to  have  asserted  their  authorship  in  the  works 

12 


178  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

themselves,  to  give  them  currency,  had  they  really  been 
their  authors ;  ^nd  the  very  fact  that  they  are  only 
claimed  to  be  Gospels  "according"  to  the  persons 
named,  without  saying  who  they  were  Written  by,  implies 
that  they  were  not  written  by  them,  and  also  that  the 
real  authors  were  unknown.  It  is  not  even  claimed, 
now,  that  the  author  of  either  of  the  Gospels  is  known. 
At  best,  then,  our  evidence  consists  of  the  unsworn  and 
unverified  statements  of  unknown  men,  made  long  after 
the  events  recorded. 


THE  FIRST  GOSPEL. 

We  have  no  knowledge  of  the  authorship  of  our 
present  Gospel  styled  "  according  to  Matthew.  "  It  is 
not  even  probable  that  it  was  written  by  Matthew, 
the  Publican.  Of  Matthew  himself,  almost  nothing  is 
known.  After  the  crucifixion,  his  labors  are  assigned 
by  the  different  traditions,  to  almost  every  country  then 
known.  There  is  no  proof  that  he  ever  left  Galilee,  or 
took  any  part  as  an  Evangelist,  and  the  numerous  and 
widely  conflicting  fields  of  labor  assigned  to  him  prove 
that  nothing  was  really  known  concerning  his  after  life 
by  subsequent  generations.  During  the  whole  period 
covered  by  the  Gospel  narratives  he  never  appears, 


THE   WRITTEN    GOSPELS. 

either  in  action  or  speech.  He  is,  to  us,  a  name,  and 
nothing  more.  With  the  exception  of  Peter,  James  and 
John,  the  original  twelve  seem  to  have  been  essentially 
supernumeraries,  both  before  and  after  the  crucifixion, 
and  to  have  been  retained  chiefly  as  nominal  and  numer- 
ical representatives  of  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel. 

It  is  not  improbable,  though  by  no  means  certain, 
that  Matthew  could  write  ;  and  that  he  actually  did  write, 
not  a  life  or  Gospel  of  Jesus,  but  certain  discourses  or 
remarkable  sayings  of  Jesus — entitled  "  Memorables," 
is  probably  true.  It  is  reasonably  certain  that  there  was 
such  a  work  under  the  name  of  Matthew,  which  may 
have  been  genuine ;  but  it  was  the  only  one,  and  quite  a 
different  work  from  our  first  Gospel.  The  Galileans 
and  Ebeonites,  consisting  of  the  original  Jewish  and 
Galilean  disciples, — including  the  family  relations  of 
Jesus,  seem  to  have  had  this  book  of  "  Memorables,"  and 
to  have  claimed  that  they  received  it  from  Matthew  him- 
self. None  of  the  early  Fathers  ever  saw  the  original 
manuscript  of  any  work  by  Matthew,  although  some  of 
them  confound  our  first  Greek  Gospel  with  this  Hebrew 
"  Memorables."  The  first  Gospel,  so  far  as  we  can 
learn,  was  originally  written  in  the  Greek  language,  and 
is  admitted  to  have  many  internal  evidences  that  such 
was  the  fact.  The  supposition  that  our  Greek  Gospel 
is  a  translation  of  the  Hebrew  manuscript  held  by  the 
Galileans,  is  unsupported  by  the  evidence.  Strauss 
says  that, — "  the  fact  is,  no  specification  of  that  Evan- 
gelist (Matthew)  can  be  found  in  the  words  of  the 
Apostolic  Fathers." 


I8O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

As  it  is  admitted  that  Matthew  wrote  his  "  Memor- 
ables  "  in  Hebrew,  while  he  was  in  Palestine,  it  is  highly 
probable  that  the  original  Galilean  disciples  had,  as  they 
always  claimed,  the  true  work  of  Matthew,  and  that  our 
first  Greek  Gospel  was  attributed  to  him,  without 
warrant,  by  subsequent  generations  unacquainted  with 
the  facts.  This  view  is  clearly  pointed  to  in  the  account 
of  this  Gospel  in  Smith's  Bible  Directory;  which  signifi- 
cantly drifts  its  observations  towards  such  a  conclusion, 
and  seriously  queries  whether  the  Ebeonite  Matthew  was 
not  the  real  "  Memorables "  or  true  work  of  that 
Apostle. 

It  has  been  urgently  contended  that  this  Gospel  is  a 
mere  compilation ; — the  "two  first  chapters  about  the 
infancy  and  genealogy  of  Jesus  being  added  by  the  com- 
piler. In  confirmation  of  this  view  of  the  account  -of 
the  "  Nativity,"  it  is  asserted  that  the  copies  of  at  least  a 
large  number  of  Jewish  Christians  were  known  not  to 
have  these  chapters  at  all.  Christian  authority  suggests 
that  the  unknown  date  of  this  Gospel  was  probably  be- 
tween the  years  A.  D.  50  and  60. 

There  is  one  consideration  which  should  not  be 
overlooked  in  this  connection.  The  "  Sermon  on  the 
Mount"  is  recorded  in  this  first  Gospel — a  sermon 
making  over  a  hundred  verses.  Now  Matthew,  even  by 
the  account  of  him  in  this  very  Gospel,  was  not  called  or 
even  mentioned  until  after  this  sermon  was  delivered, 
nor  is  there  the  slightest  indication  or  reason  to  believe 
that  he  was  present,  nor  is  it  within  the  range  of  belief 
that  a  mere  casual  observer  could  have  so  specifically 


THE    WRITTEN    GOSPELS.  l8l 

remembered  so  long  a  discourse  for  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury after  it  was  delivered. 

To  say  the  very  least  of  this  matter,  then,  we  have 
no  reliable  information  as  to  who  wrote  our  first  Greek 
Gospel,  but  have  reason  to  believe  that  it  was  not 
Matthew,  the  Apostle. 


THE   SECOND  GOSPEL. 

Our  present  narrative  entitled  "  The  Gospel  accord- 
ing to  St.  Mark"  has  been  supposed  to  have  been 
written  by  that  Marcus  who  was  at  one  time  with  Paul, 
but  was  most  indignantly  rejected  by  the  old  Apostle. 
This,  however,  is  a  mere  conjecture.  And  a  still  more 
gratuitous  conjecture  is,  that  he  might  have  been  one  of 
the  "Seventy:" — possibly,  since,  as  we  have  no  knowl- 
edge of  who  was,  or  was  not,  the  author  the  range  of 
mere  conjecture — of  the  "might  have  been,"  is  unre- 
stricted. It  has  also  been  suggested  that  he  was  an 
interpreter  of  Peter,  but  this  is  also  without  support ; 
while  Papias  says,  that  John  the  Presbyter  was  the  in- 
terpreter of  Peter,  and  Irenaeus  says  the  book  was 


1 82  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

written  after  the  death  of  Peter.  The  truth  is,  that  the 
person  who  wrote  it,  the  time  and  place  it  was  written, 
and  the  language  in  which  it  was  written  are  alike  un- 
known. Christian  authority  suggests  A.  D.  63  to  70  as 
its  most  probable  date.  Strauss  says,  that  ihe  Ecclesi- 
astical writers  supposed  that  certain  allusions  of  Papias 
referred  to  the  author  of  the  Second  Gospel,  but  he  avers 
that,  in  fact,  "the  passage  from  Papias  says  nothing  of 
it — nay  it  by  no  means  agrees  with  that  Gospel." 

The  fact  that  whole  verses,  whole  narratives  and 
almost  whole  chapters  of  this  Gospel  agree  literally 
with  those  of  other  Gospels,  proves  that  either  it  or 
they  are,  in  the  main,  compilations,  and  not  original 
authority,  or  that  the  extent  of  the  alterations  which 
occurred  in  producing  such  forced  accord  between  them, 
was  so  great  as  to  destroy  the  value  of  the  whole  as 
evidence.  We  may  also  add  that,  had  the  work  been 
taken  from  the  instructions  of  Peter  or  any  other  of  the 
Apostles,  there  was  every  reason  to  have  said  so,  and 
every  reason,  now,  to  presume  that  it  would  have  been 
so  claimed  in  the  work  itself.  It  is  evidently  not  the 
work  of  any  of  the  original  eye-witnesses,  nor  directly 
taken  from  them. 


THE   WRITTEN   GOSPELS.  183 

THIRD  GOSPEL. 

The  Gospel  entitled  "  according  to  St.  Luke "  has 
been  supposed,  but  upon  wholly  insufficient  evidence,  to 
have  been  written  by  one  Lucus,  a  companion  of  Paul. 
Of  this  Lucus,  even,  little  is  known.  The  date  of  its 
composition  is  wholly  uncertain,  having  been  placed  as 
the  latter  part  of  the  second  century ;  while  its  special 
supporters  place  it  about  the  year  A.  D.  60.  It  was  late 
before  it  was  ranked  with  the  other  canonical  books. 
It  purports  to  have  been  written  for  the  instruction  of 
one  Theophilus,  as  to  the  beliefs  among  Christians  which 
were  then  most  surely  credited.  The  work  rests  under 
the  general "  pall  of  doubt  hanging  over  all  the  Gospels, 
and,  in  addition  to  this,  it  neither  makes  a  pretence  of 
being  based  upon  the  evidence  of  those  who  knew  any- 
thing about  the  facts  related,  nor  leaves  any  room  for  us 
to  assume  or  suppose  anything  about  it;  but  expressly 
claims  to  be  an  exposition  of  the  more  general  belief  as 
to  such  facts,  prevalent  to  the  time  it  was  written.  It 
therefore  can  be  evidence  of  nothing  more  than  the  then 
state  of  Christian  beliefs  ;  and  consequently  could  not 
have  been  written  from  the  verbal  narratives  of  any  of 
the  Apostles,  as  has  been  suggested.  The  author 
doubtlessly  never  saw  Jesus,  and  perhaps  none  of  his 
Apostles. 


184  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

THE    FOURTH    GOSPEL. 

The  narrative  entitled  "  The  Gospel  according  to 
St.  John,"  has  been  generally  credited  to  the  "  Beloved 
Disciple,"  and  yet  this  has  been  strongly  contested  by 
both  Christians  and  Skeptics.  The  ancient  sect  of 
Alogi,  living  only  some  two  hundred  years  after  Jesus, 
rejected  this  Gospel  as  spurious  ;  while  some  others 
claimed  that  it  had  been  greatly  tampered  with,  and 
matter  interpolated  on  purpose  to  confute  their  own 
doctrines.  Polycarp,  who  saw  and  knew  John  person- 
ally, does  not  mention'  him  in  connection  with  the  au- 
thorship of  any  Gospel.  Francus,  who  was  a  disciple  of 
Polycarp,  a  voluminous  writer  and  great  controversial- 
ist, never  invokes  the  authority  of  John,  although  his  po- 
sition and  labors  directly  imposed  upon  him  the  duty  of 
defending  the  authority  of  the  Gospels.  The  first  con- 
ceded citation  from  this  Gospel  is  found  inTheophilus 
of  Antioch,  written  about  the  year  A.  D.  172.  There 
is  no  real  knowledge  as  to  who  wrote  it,  or  as  to  when  it 
was  written  or  where  it  was  written.  Even  the  life  of 
John  is  wholly  overlooked  in  the  New  Testament  after 
the  final  departure  of  Jesus.  His  master  had  requested 
him  to  take  care  of  his  old  Mother,  and,  so  far  as  we 
know,  he  may  have  remained  in  Galilee  for  that  purpose. 
Of  course,  Tradition  tells  us  all  about. him  and  about 
everybody  else,  but  this  tradition  is  as  full  of  absurdi- 
ties as  of  lies,  and  modern  Protestants  concede  its 
worthlessness.  If  it  proves  anything,  it  proves  far  too 
many  things. 


THE    WRITTEN    GOSPELS.  185 

We  have  now  glanced  at  the  sotirccs  from  which  we 
derive  the  facts  or  recitals  upon  which  we  are  to  decide. 
We  have  seen  the  humble,  ignorant  and  superstitious 
men  of  an  ignorant  and  superstitious  class  of  an  ancient 
and  subject  race,  as  well  as  their  not  more  attractive, 
nor  more  credible  female  associates,  who  were  the  cho- 
sen witnesses  of  Jesus  and  the  chief  agents  in  moulding, 
and  giving  currency  to  the  original  stories  which  con- 
stitutes the  seed-bed  from  which  sprung  the  oral  and 
written  traditions,  myths,  legends  and  Gospels  consti- 
tuting the  muniments  of  the  Christian  Faith  during  the 
first  ages,  and  from  which  were  selected  the  New  Tes- 
tament narratives.  We  have  seen  that  there  was  no 
systematic  endeavor  either  to  write  a  life  of  Jesus  or  to 
embody  his  doctrines  for  the  benefit  of  the  public  or  of 
posterity,  but  that  the  writings  of  early  Christianity 
were  either  the  fugitive  responses  called  forth  by  special 
conditions  and  needs  or  the  eager  productions  of  fanat- 
ical propagandists  or  zealous  controversialists, — nowhere 
assuming  either  the  character  or  candor  of  history.  We 
have  seen  that  none  of  these  documents  were  consid- 
ered, during  those  ages,  as  either  "  Scripture  "  or  as  in- 
fallible, but  were  each  accepted  for  what  they  were 
deemed  worth  by  the  reader, — those  subsequently  de- 
creed  to  be  canonical  as  well  as  those  left  as  uncanoni- 
cal ;  and  that,  by  reason  of  their  reliance  upon  oral  tra- 
dition and  the  lex  non  scripta,  and  of  their  estimate  of 
the  writers  and  their  writings,  and  more  especially  in 
view  of  their  exclusively  temporary  utility  on  account  of 
their  impending  destruction  in  that  of  the  World,  the 
founders  and  early  disciples  of  Christianity  took  no 
pains  either  to  secure  a  history  of  Jesus  or  his  church 


1 86  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

or  to  "preserve  even  such  occasional  writings  as  the  tem- 
porary emergencies  elicited  or  even  to  transmit  correct 
copies  of  them.  We  have  seen  that  these  early  writings 
were  numerous,  and  presented  such  a  contradictory  and 
absurd  mass  of  myths,  legends  and  lies  as  to  wholly 
obscure  the  original  facts,  and  render  them  a  source  of 
contention  and  humiliation  to  the  triumphant  "  Court 
Church  "  of  Constantine  and  his  successors,  and  to  com- 
pel an  attempt  to  select,  from  this  crude  and  puerile 
mass,  the  least  childish  and  humiliating  elements  and 
leave  the  residue  to  sink  into  comparative  oblivion. 
We  have  seen  our  utter  lack  of  verification  for  our  pres- 
ent record  and  our  absolute  want  of  all  real  knowledge 
as  to  the  authorship  of  our  received  Gospels,  and  the 
impenetrable  cloud  of  doubt  which  hangs'  over  every- 
thing pertaining  to  the  actors  and  witnesses,  and  to  their 
testimony.  We  have  seen  the  extinction  of  all  the  ear- 
lier copies  of  our  accepted  books,  and  the  altogether 
astounding  number  of  differences  between  those  still  ex- 
isting, and  the  confession  that  these  alterations  have 
been,  not  only  the  result  of  innocent  carelessness  and 
mistakes,  but  have  been  systematically  and  intention- 
ally produced  and  propagated  to  favor  the  concord  and 
consistency  of  the  Christian  records  as  well  as  to  estab- 
lish the  peculiar  views  and  doctrines  of  their  mutilaters 
and  interpolaters ; — and  all  this  from  the  very  latest  and 
highest  Christian  authority.  We  have  also  had  a  faith- 
ful and  vivid  picture  of  the  men  and  their  times,  who 
took  upon  themselves  to  select  for  us,  by  a  majoity  vote, 
what  we  should  believe  and  what  we  should  not  believe, 
under  the  pains  of  eternal  damnation. 


THE   WRITTEN    GOSPELS.  l8/ 

This  cursory  review  is  not  intended  to  enlighten  the 
learned,  but  to  place  before  the  minds  of  the  ordinary 
reader  an  epitome  of  the  well-known  facts,  with  a  view 
to  enable  him,  if  he  dares,  to  form  some  general  estimate 
of  the  nature  and  value  of  the  testimony  with  which  we 
are  to  deal,  and  to  answer  for  himself  the  question — 
whether  he  can,  in  justice  to  his  own  manhood  and  com- 
mon sense,  accord  divine  sanctity  and  infallibility  to 
such  testimony,  so  made,  so  selected,  and  so  preserved  ? 
— Whether  he  can,  rationally  and  without  all  bias  and 
coercion,  believe  that  the  good  God  so  formed  and  so 
preserved  the  "  words  of  eternal  life,"  and  decreed  eter- 
nal banishment  and  torture  upon  those  who  did  not  ac- 
cept its  infallibility  ? 

My  purpose  has  been  accomplished  if  this  summary 
review  of  the  history  of  the  evidence  and  what  may  still 
further  be  said  in  that  regard,  shall  even  partially  pre- 
vail in  slackening  those  iron  bands  by  which  superstition 
and  education  have  hooped,  clamped  and  controlled  the 
reason,  fears  and  hopes  of  mankind.  The  evidence  fur- 
nished by  our  gospels  does  not  even  purpott  to  be  in- 
spired, nor  were  those  Gospels  claimed  to  have  been 
inspired,  either  by  those  who  wrote,  or  those  who  re- 
ceived them  ;  and  we  have  seen  how  it  was,  when  it  was, 
and  by  whom  it  was  that  their  inspiration  was  first  de- 
creed ;  and  now,  if  the  reader  can  force  himself  to 
realize  that,  at  best,  they  are  no  more  than  what  they 
purport  to  be,  and  what  they  were  considered  to  be  by 
those  who  wrote  and  those  who  received  them,  and  will 
cease,  especially,  to  treat  them  as  self-verified,  when  the 
very  facts  of  their  authenticity  and  inspiration  are  in 
question,  the  road  to  truth  will,  at  least,  once  more  be 
open, — even  if  it  be  but  dim  and  uncertain. 


1 88  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

Even  if  we  waive,  however,  the  unknown  origin  of 
the  Gospels  and  the  certainty  of  their  mutilations  and 
changes  as  well  as  the  unfavorable  significance  of  the 
characters  of  their  authors,  selectors  and  manipulators, 
it  still  becomes  important  to  form  some  general  estimate 
or  notion  of  the  real  and  judicial  value  of  such  antique 
reliques,  even  if  they  were  conceded  to  be  the  authen- 
tic writings  of  those  whose  names  are  prefixed  to  them. 

From  their  want  of  internal  connection,  coherence 
and  congruity,  from  their  simple  aggregation  of  abrupt 
and  disconnected  facts  and  fragments,  without  even  an 
attempt  to  string  them  together  by  any  current  thread 
of  sequences  or  in  any  chronological  order,  from  their 
more  than  suspicious  verbal  agreements  throughout  long 
recitals  at  some  points,  and  their  palpable  contradictions 
at  others,  it  would  appear  that  at  least  more  than  one  of 
these  Gospels  must  have  been  mere  aggregated  excerpts 
from  then  existing  writings,  with  some  partial  connect- 
ing matter  from  oral  traditions ;  or  that  they  have  been 
forced  into  such  harmonies  by  fraudulent  alterations. 
They  seem  to  have  been  but  crude  jottings,  from  the  be- 
ginning ;  and  now  exhibit  the  successive  travel-stains  of 
a  long  and  rough  journey.  As  they  now  stand  they  pre- 
sent a  growth  watered,  clipped  and  grafted  by  many 
nurserymen  ;  and,  could  we  now  ingraft  upon  them  the 
innumerable  and  ever-changing  modern  phases  of  con- 
struction which  would,  in  earlier  times,  have  found  their 
way  into  the  text,  the  whole  would  present  a  very  fair 
view  of  the  intellectual  and  moral  growth  of  Christian 
peoples.  They  are  the  self-expression  of  the  agencies  of 
a  religious  revolution.  The  whole  mass  of  these  Chris- 


THE    WRITTEN    GOSPELS.  189 

tian  writings  were  but  the  product  of  the  efforts  of  an 
ignorant  and  superstitious,  but  developing  people  to 
weave  and  construct  the  framework  and  covering  for  the 
budding  germs  of  a  divine  evolution  planted  by  Jesus — 
efforts  which  were  at  the  same  time  to  transmit  to  future 
ages  the  many-voiced  echoes  of  the  childish  conceptions, 
beliefs,  ideals  and  aspirations  of  the  workers  in  that  neb- 
ulous and  fiery  prelude  to  the  triumph  of  Christianity. 
They  mainly  consist  of  the  mutilated  remains  of  anony- 
mous narratives  of  specific  and  chosen  portions  of  the 
life  and  sayings  of  Jesus — sayings  and  doings  such  as, 
after  much  confused  wranglings  and  after  many  friendly 
chattings  and  many  mutual  suggestions,  reminders  and 
concessions,  those  early,  zealous  and  credulous  followers 
of  Jesus  hoped,  desired  and  finally  imagined  them  to 
have  been,  or  such  as  they  supposed  ought  to,  and  there- 
fore must  have  been,  to  fulfil  the  supposed  prophecies 
about  Christ ; — which  Christ,  Jesus  himself  clearly  was, 
at  least  to  them. 


One  secret  underlies  much  of  the  evidence  recorded 
in  the  Gospels  which  it  is  very  difficult  for  us  to  realize, 
but  also  very  necessary  for  us  to  understand.  Men  of 
the  Gospel  Age  and  of  the  country  and  class  to  which 
the  Evangelists  belonged,  had  no  conception  of  the 
sacredness  of  history,  and  but  little,  if  any,  for  truth  for 
the  mere  sake  of  truth.  In  the  East,  men  of  that  day 
did  not,  any  more  than  they  do  now,  regard  deception 
for  a  desired  end  or  for  a  friend,  and  especially  for  a  good 


JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

object  and  where  it  was  not  injurious  to  others,  as  being 
a  sin — did  not,  and  do  not  now,  regard  it  at  all  as  we  re- 
gard it.  They  wrote,  indeed,  to  establish  what  they 
deemed  a  great  truth,  but  not  the  truth  of  historic 
details, — nor  history  in  any  sense.  They  wrote  and 
preached,  not  for  the  future,  nor  for  the  mere  sake 
of  accurately  recording  events,  but  for  the  purpose  of 
securing  the  belief  of  the  multitude  in  the  divine  mission 
of  Jesus,  and  to  this  righteous  end  all  things  were  made 
to  bend.  Actuated  by  the  spirit  of  a  court  of  Equity, 
they  considered  those  things  as  done  which  "  ought  to 
have  been  done,"  and  fearlessly  asserted  as  true  what 
they  supposed  to  have  been  true.  Having  once  un- 
doubtingly  accepted  Jesus  as  the  Saviour  of  the  World, 
after  he  was  supposed  to  have  risen  from  the  dead,  they 
did  not  hesitate  to  imagine  and  believe  that  whatsoever 
was  to  happen  to,  or  about,  or  to  be  done  by,  the  proph- 
esied Messiah,  must  of  necessity  have  been  fulfilled  in 
some  form  in  Jesus  ;  for,  Could  the  prophecies  lie  ? — and 
was  not  Jesus  the  very  Christ,  proven  so  to  be  by  his 
resurrection  ?  Whatever  prophecies  they  could  remem- 
ber to  have  heard  about  the  Christ,  and  which  could,  in 
any  form,  be  forced  into  the  service  of  Jesus  without 
palpably  contradicting  the  principal  and  known  facts  of 
his  life,  will  be  found  inserted  into  one  or  another  of  his 
Gospels  by  either  their  authors  or  their  interpolaters. 
What  is  very  significant  of  their  blind  and  unscrupulous 
zeal  in  this  regard,  is- the  fact  that  in  some  instances  they 
have  cited  and  fulfilled  prophecies  in  Jesus,  which  he 
himself  not  only  never  claimed,  but  had  expressly  urged 
and  argued  that  they  did  not  apply  to  the  Christ  at  all ; 
while  still  other  prophecies  are  gravely  cited  and  fulfilled 


THE    WRITTEN    GOSPELS.  1 9 1 

where  uo  such  prophesies  exist  in  the  Scriptures,  but  were 
mere  citations  from  the  popular  volume  of  "  Chimney 
Corner  law;"  and  still  other  prophecies  are  cited  and 
fulfilled  so  lamely  and  inappropriately  as  to  be  ludicrous  ; 
as  for  example  a  prophecy,  whose  fulfilment  was  to  be  a 
sign  to  convince  a  king  who  had  reigned  some  thousand 
or  more  years  before,  and  which  was  said  have  been  ac- 
tually fulfilled  in  the  brief  period  assigned  for  its  fulfil- 
ment— namely :  a  prophecy  that  a  virgin  should  have  a 
son,  and  that  his  name  should  be  called  Emmanuel,  was 
somehow  imagined  to  apply  to  the  Messiah,  and  con- 
sequently, in  defiance  of  all  the  facts  and  the  express 
terms  of  the  prophecy,  they  tell  us  that  Jesus  was 
this  little  Emmanuel  with  a  virgin  mother — both  of 
whom  were  dead  long  centuries  before  ;  and  that  the 
Lord  had  told  Joseph  in  a  dream,  that  his  wife,  Mary, 
should  bring  forth  a  son  and  should  call  his  name 
"Jesus!" — a  name  which  was  wholly  unlike  that  of 
"  Emmanuel "  and  wholly  different  in  signification- 
And,  in  additional  fulfilment  of  the  prophecy,  they  found 
out,  some  quarter  or  half  a  century  after  the  crucifixion 
of  Jesus,  that  his  mother,  who  was  married  to  Joseph, 
was  still  a  virgin  at  his  conception — that  the  husband 
and  wife  had  not  as  yet  "  come  together !  " — a  fact  which 
was  clearly  never  known,  or  even  hinted  at,  in  the  life- 
time of  Jesus  by  either  the  words  or  conduct  of  himself 
or  of  his  mother  !  The  fact  that  they  had  ever  heard  of 
a  prophecy,  whether  in  the  Scriptures  or  not,  which  they 
supposed  might  apply  to  the  Messiah  was  sufficient  to 
insure  a  belief  that  it  must  have  been,  and  had  been, 
fulfilled  in  the  Son  of  Mary  ; — for,  Was  it  not  impossible 
for  the  prophecies  to  lie  ?  and  had  not  Jesus  actually 


JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

arisen  from  the  dead  ?  and  Was  he  not  therefore  the 
veritable,  proven  Christ  ?  How,  then,  could  the  fact  be 
otherwise  than  the  prophecy  of  that  fact  ?  And  was  it 
not  all-important  to  the  conversion  of  the  Jews  that  every 
available  prophecy  which  might,  by  possibility,  have  been 
fulfilled  in  the  life  of  Jesus  should  be  seized  upon  and 
appropriated,  after  his  crucifixion,  seeing  that  all  the 
long  cherished  Messianic  hopes  of  his  race  and  of  his 
own  chosen  disciples  had  been,  so  signally  blasted  by  his 
own  unsuccessful  efforts  and  humiliating  execution  as  a 
criminal  ?  A  doubt  as  to  the  propriety  of  such  efforts 
and  constructions  never  entered  their  minds,  while  a 
scruple  to  assert  as  tmqualifiedly  true  what  they  believed 
to  be  true,  or  imagined  to  be  true,  or  that  they  judged 
or  supposed  to  be  true,  never  troubled  them  for  a  mo- 
ment. They  never  discriminated  between  the  degrees 
of  certainty,  nor  qualified  or  graded  their  statements, 
judgments,  inferences,  information,  general  rumor,  sup- 
posed prophetic  necessities,  a  dream  of  Joseph  in  the  land 
of  Egypt,  happening  half  a  century  before,  or  the  still 
more  remote  dreams,  or  rather/0 int  dream,  of  the  famous 
"  Wise  men  of  the  East" — persons  whom  they  had  never 
seen,  were  all  simply  and  plumply  stated  as  facts,  and  in 
the  language  and  style  in  which  they  recited  actually- 
witnessed  facts.  The  "  ifs  and  ands,"  the  provisos,  the 
probablys,  the  references  to  authorities,  the  qualifications 
and  the  like,  were  all  left  to  "  other  men  and  other 
times."  They  themselves  had  never  doubted  or  de- 
manded proofs, — Why  should  they  think  them  necessary 
for  others  ?  Nor  do  they  even  pretend  to  have  either 
divine  or  human  authority  for  such  bold  statements. 


THE    WRITTEN    GOSPELS.  193 

The  very  fact  was,  as  we  have  intimated,  that  they 
did  not  write,  nor  bear  witness  with  a  special  view  to  the 
truth  of  the  matters  narrated,  but  narrated  for  the  pur- 
pose of  a  truth — narrated  to  produce  belief  in  a  given  fact 
— a  fact  they  verily  believed,  and  considered  that  a  belief 
in  which  would  bring  endless  felicity  and  honor  to  the 
believer  and  glory  to  the  witnesses  and  agents  through 
whom  he  was  convinced.  Eternal  beatitude  awaited  be- 
lief, and  immortal  crowns  and  palms  of  glory  were  the 
reward  of  the  witnesses  and  laborers  for  Jesus,  however 
the  belief  and  conversion  of  their  hearers  might  be  won. 
The  great  truth  for  which  they  labored  demanded  a  blind 
faith  and  devotion,  and  for  these  it  offered  inducements 
which  sounded  the  very  depths  of  human  motives, 
whether  of  hope  or  fear.  Upon  this  belief  depended  all 
that  was  worth  hoping  or  fearing.  For  this  sole  and 
supreme  need,  Could  their  zeal  be  too  great  on  the  eve 
of  that  "great  day"  which  was  to  decide  the  fate  of  all 
men  ?  Was  it  not  right  to  be  "  all  things  to  all  men," 
that  peradventure  some  might  be  saved,  and  to  say  with 
St.  Paul : — "  For  if  the  truth  of  God  hath  more  abounded 
through  my  lie  unto  his  glory,  why  yet  am  I  judged  a 
sinner  ? "  Were  history  and  facts  to  stand  in  the  way  of 
one  fact — of  the  "  one  thing  needful " — in  the  way  of 
Goas  truth  ?  Who  dare  condemn  as  a  sin  the  lying 
"  unto  the  glory  of  God,"  or  in  order  that  the  "  truth  of 
God  "  might  more  abound  ?  Were  not  all  things  to  bend 
to  this  supreme  purpose  ? 

13 


194  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

But  Can  such  men  be  honest  ?  We  reply,  yes, — 
honest  in  purpose,  and  honest  to  their  own  convictions 
and  sense  of  right,  and  no  man  can  be  more.  The  prin- 
ciple quoted  from  St.  Paul,  and  the  one  upon  which  the 
early  disciples  and  Church  acted,  would  not  now  receive 
the  highest  approval,  nor  does  it  appear  that  Jesus  him- 
self sanctioned  it,  at  least  as  a  general  principle.  It  is  as 
unwise,  however,  to  judge  those  early  men  by  our  stand- 
ards of  intelligence  and  morals  as  it  is  to  permit  them 
to  force  their  own  standards  upon  ourselves,  or  the  dec- 
larations made  in  pursuance  of  them.  It  is  difficult  for 
us  to  judge,  or  even  realize,  such  men  and  such  times. 
The  first  disciples  were  what  men  of  their  class  and  of 
their  times  might  be  supposed  to  have  been  when  they 
were  even  more  credulous  than  their  qredulous  class,  and 
when  they  were  inspired  by  a  burning  conviction  of  a 
"  divine  mission  "  and  had  a  full  belief  that  they  were 
working  for  the  good  of  man  and  the  "  glory  of  God." 
They  were  not  responsible  for  being  born  in  a  phase  of 
development  which  engendered  no  conception,  much 
less  regard,  for  the  true  sacredness  of  history  or  for  lit- 
erary honesty.  These  are  things  of  later  growth — of 
the  latest  and  highest,  indeed.  If  we  visit,  even  now, 
the  scenes  of  their  labors,  What  shall  we  find  in  the 
minds  of  the  Jews  and  Arabs  of  Palestine  which  re- 
sponds to  such  ideas  ?  Such  peoples  and  classes  habit- 
ually and  naturally  create  their  myths  and  legends, 
mould  and  remodel  their  heroes  and  traditions,  and  in- 
vent parables,  and  interpret  their  dreams  with  a  view  to 
the  embodiment  and  concrete  expression  of  their  growing 
conceptions,  their  worship,  their  ideals,  their  sympathies, 
their  morals  and  spiritual  aspirations,  or,  lastly,  to  pro- 


THE    WRITTEN    GOSPELS.  1 95 

dtice  some  desired  effect  in  others.  They  do  not  even 
think  in  the  abstract,  and  have  no  more  concern  in  mod- 
ifying actual  characters  and  events  to  concretely  express 
their  ideas  or  subserve  their  desires,  than  they  have  in 
inventing  myths,  legends  and  parables  for  that  purpose, 
or  than  has  a  modern  novelist  in  fictitiously  embodying 
his  views.  The  teaching  of  Jesus  by  parables  was  the 
type  of  all  effective  teaching  to  such  minds.  To  speak 
of  great  principles  or  abstract  ideas  to  such  men  is  to  aim 
above  their  capacity.  To  deprive  them  of  thinking  of, 
and  worshipping  God  as  a  divine  man — as  a  God  with 
"  body  and  parts  "  and  with  a  local  habitation,  was  to 
deprive  them  of  thinking  of  God  at  all.  People  in  this 
phase  of  development,  when  desiring  to  thus  concretely 
express  their  ideals  and  spiritual  longings,  naturally 
seize  upon  the  first  person,  living  or  dead,  who  even 
slightly  responds  to  their  psychical  needs,  and  force  his 
person,  life  and  character  into  some  representative  ex- 
pression of  their  own  ideas,  morals,  or  spiritual  life  and 
longings  ;  or,  in  lack  of  such,  will  manufacture  a  hero,  a 
God,  or  their  lives  and  adventures,  out  of  imaginary 
materials  altogether.  Such  has  been  the  uniform  men- 
tal moods  and  habits  of  all  primitive  and  developing 
peoples.  To  judge  people,  thus  endeavoring  to  con- 
cretely embody  and  express  their  spiritual  life  and  man- 
ifestations or  to  instruct,  persuade  or  control  others  in 
conformity  therewith,  as  we  would  judge  the  modern 
historian,  whose  only  object  is  the  recording  of  the  facts 
of  actual  life  for  the  sake  of  preserving  them  as  facts,  is 
as  unjust  as  it  is  delusive.  Such  men  regard  facts  as 
subservient  to  purpose,  and  while  they  do  not  change  or 
adulterate  the  facts  without  a  purpose,  they  freely  and 


196  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

unhesitatingly  subordinate  facts  to  their  conceptions  and 
desires.  That  the  facts  used  by  them  should,  slower  or 
faster,  assume  the  hues  and  mould  of  their  desires  and 
beliefs,  was  inevitable. 

This  method  of  creating  and  adulterating  facts  has 
existed  among  all  peoples,  and  has  obscured  the  entire 
early  history  of  the  Race.  The  early  history  of  all  peo- 
ples are  legendary  and  mythic.  Nor  have  the  principles 
or  causes  producing  such  results  ceased  to  operate  even 
in  our  time.  A  candid  and  well-informed  person  will 
not  fail  to  find  evidences  of  its  operations  in  our  own 
accounts,  both  traditional  and  written,  of  our  national 
struggles  and  victories,  as  well  as  in  our  partially  mythic 
renderings  of  the  acts  and  characters  of  our  represen- 
tative men, — such  as  Washington,  Crockett,  Lincoln  and 
Joseph  Smith — the  Mormon  ;  nor  could  he  fail  to  find 
its  operations  exemplified  in  every  slander  and  rumor 
which  moulds  the  private  and  public  character  of  the 
citizen.  Nothing  is  more  difficult  than  to  trace  the 
source,  progress  and  responsibility  of  these  creations 
and  remouldings  of  facts.  Like  all  false  rumors  they 
seem  to  grow  with  their  circulation,  as  to  .assume  form 
and  color  from  their  channels  of  circulation  ; — often 
so  gradually  as  to  fix  neither  their  exact  date,  nor 
their  responsibility.  Myths,  legends  and  historic  per- 
versions, especially  religious  ones,  seem  to  be  natural 
growths, — incident  to  all,  but  especially  to  the  earlier 
stages  of  human  civilization. 


THE    WRITTEN    GOSPELS.  1 97 

There  are  two  facts  in  human  nature  which  should 
never  be  overlooked  in  estimating  of  the  testimony  and 
conduct  of  the  propagators  of  those  religions  which  claim 
to  determine  man's  future  destiny, — namely:  their  gen- 
eral and  resistless  tendency  to  inspire  an  unscrupulous 
zeal  and  a  blind  partizanship  ;  and  secondly,  the  control- 
ling desire  and  tendency  of  men  to  accept  and  believe 
the  marvellous  and  mysterious, — especially  where  the 
matter  concerns  the  question  of  the  existence  and  nature 
of  the  Spirit  World.  We  need  not  much  concern  our- 
selves with  the  reason  of  these  proclivities,  since  all  hu- 
man history  and  experience  prove  the  fact  of  their  exist- 
ence. That  history  shows  that  the  propagation  of  such 
religions  notoriously  elicit  the  fiercest,  the  blindest,  the 
cruellest  and  most  unscrupulous  elements  in  human  na- 
ture, is  not  to  be  doubted.  It  is  in  vain  to  hope  for 
judicial  impartiality  and  historic  accuracy  from  either 
friendly  or  unfriendly  ecclesiastical  sources.  The  na- 
ture cf  the  subject  and  the  emotions  it  inspires  are  self- 
blinding  ;  while  man  cannot  practice  our  moderm  maxim 
that  "  ends  do  not  justify  the  means."  Even  Men  who 
concede  the  doctrine  cannot  practically  divest  themselves 
of  the  opposite  notion,  but  habitually  justify  or  shield 
what  they  deem  conducive  to  the  "  glory  of  God."  Our 
every-day  experiences  show  that  our  churches  will,  not 
only  endeavor  to  hush-up,  but  will  actually  defend  their 
priests  and  preachers  from  charges  of  immorality,  in  the 
face  of  evidence  upon  which  they  would  unhesitatingly 
condemn  a  skeptic  or  sinner, — and  all  for  the  glory  of 
God  and  the  honor  of  his  church.  Every  church  festi- 
val for  raising  money,  with  its  sexual  allurements,  its 
lotteries,  its  post  offices,  and  its  other  means  of  e^ctor- 


198  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

tion,  presents  scenes  which  would  meet  the  censure  of 
the  good  people  of  the  church  were  they  practiced  for 
other  purposes  ;  while  the  consciences  of  these  good 
people  are  wholly  soothed  by  the  success  of  the  "  good 
cause,"  even  by  such  means  ;  and  yet  would  chuckle  with 
delight  over  a  hundred-dollar-bill  won  -from  some  old 
voluptuary  by  a  kiss  from  the  deacon's  daughter  or  wife. 
Their  conscience  sleeps  under  their  self-gratulations  for 
pious  motives  and  the  success  of  divine  means. 

These  proclivities  and  practices  are  more  strikingly 
manifested  in  the  earlier  and  more  fiery  phases  of  relig- 
ious propagandism.  Each  Sect,  blind  to  its  own  mis- 
taken or  surreptitious  methods,  is  indignantly  alive  to 
the  inexcusable  means  and  modes  resorted  to  by  all  the 
others.  Christianity  has  certainly  proved  no  safeguard" 
against  these  tendencies  of  the  human  nature,  but  has, 
probably,  through  the  excessive  zeal  of  its  devotees,  been 
exceptionably  subject  to  them.  Of  this  fact,  we  are  not 
only  assured  by  history  and  experience,  but  we  can  have 
the  Protestant  half  of  it  proved  for  us  by  the  Catholics, 
and  the  Catholic  half  of  it  proven  by^he  Protestants. 
It  is  not  only  indubitably  true  that  holy  fictions  and  pious 
deceits,  as  well  as  frauds  and  forgeries,  have  been  com- 
mon instruments  in  the  hands  of  churchmen  from  the 
very  days  of  the  Apostles  down  to  the  Jesuitical  priests 
of  our  own  time,  but  it  is  also  true  that,  until  a  very  re- 
cent date,  they  were  very  generally  justified  by  the 
Church,  and  that  they  are  still  frequently  justified,  and 
still  oftener  practiced.  Even  where  the  Church  has  not 
dared  to  openly  justify  such  means,  she  has  been  the 
promptest  to  conceal,  and  the  last  to  confess  them  :  while 
she  "has  not  scrupled  to  receive  the  benefit  of  them  so 


THE    WRITTEN    GOSPELS.  1 99 

long  as  they  could  be  made  serviceable  before  the  ig- 
norant. Long  before  the  advent  of  Christianity,  Eze- 
kiel  the  prophet,  makes  the  Lord  say  : — "  If  a  prophet 
be  deceived  when  he  hath  spoken  a  thing,  I  the  Lord 
have  deceived  that  prophet" — (xiv.  9):  while  in  I 
Kings — (xxii.  20-23),  we  are  told  that  God  expressly 
sent  a  heavenly  messenger  to  put  a  "  lying  spirit " 
into  Ahab's  prophets,  that  they  might  deceive  him  and 
lure  him  to  his  own  destruction.  Such,  the  Bible 
teaches  us,  were  the  means  which  even  God  used 
to  subserve  his  purposes.  Jesus  himself  declares, 
(Mark  iv.  11-12)  that  he  spake  in  obscure  and  delu- 
sive parables  to  the  Jews  (which  even  his  own  disci- 
ples could  not  understand,  but  which  he  privately  ex- 
plained to  them,)  for  the  express  purpose  of  preventing 
them  from  understanding  them  ; — lest  they  should  be 
converted,  and  their  sins  should  be  forgiven  !  In  this  in- 
stance Jesus  seems  to  have  by  no  means  risen  above  the 
temper  and  spirit  of  his  race  and  time,  and  to  have  set 
an  example  which,  but  too  many  of  his  followers  have 
not  been  slow  to  follow.  St.  Paul  boasts  that,  for  the 
purpose  of  winning  different  peoples,  he  had  specially 
accommodated  himself  or  his  teachings  to  each  people, 
— and  had  been  "  all  things  to  all  men  ; "  and  he  ex- 
pressly avows  that  he  won  his  proselytes  "by  guile" 
— (2  Cor.  xii.  1 6).  He  also  boldly  asserts  (2  Thes. 
ii.  n,  12)  that  God  sent  strong  delusion  upon  unbe- 
lievers, that  they  might  believe  in  a  lie  and  be  damned ! 
In  Romans — (iii.  7),  he  stoutly  defends  himself  for  lying 
for  the  glory  of  God, — as  we  have  already  quoted. 
Eusebius,  the  first  great  church  historian,  and  the  one 
upon  whom  we  chiefly  depend  for  our  knowledge  of 


2OO  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

the  early  Christian  church,  unhesitatingly  avows  that 
he  related  whatever  might  redound  to  the  glory  of  his 
religion,  and  suppressed  whatever  might  tend  to  its 
disgrace — (Gibbon,  vol.  ii.  ch.  16).  The  object  and  limit 
of  our  work  will  not  justify  further  illustration  on  this 
point.  What  has  been  already  shown  is  sufficiently 
conclusive  that  early  Christians  did  and  said  whatever 
would  advance  Christianity. 


The  second  tendency  to  which  attention  has  been 
called, — namely,  the  tendency  to  maintain  and  believe 
in  the  miraculous  or  supernatural,  will  require  still  less 
consideration.  It  is,  indeed,  scarcely  possible  for  one, 
even  tolerably  observant  of  the  history  and  workings  of 
human  nature,  to  fail  to  recognize  the  inappeasable 
longings  of  most  men's  minds — (and  of  all  women's),  to 
get  a  glimpse  into,  or  a  word  from,  the  realms  of  the 
Unknown,  and  their  almost  resistless  tendency  to  make 
"  the  wish  the  father  to  the  thought " — to  accept,  and  try 
to  believe  what  they  desire.  To  be  assured  of  this,  one 
has  but  to  remember  the  mysterious  attractions  and  suc- 
cesses, in  all  ages  and  countries,  of  the  fortune-teller,  the 
clairvoyant,  the  prophet,  and  the  "spirit-mediums." 
The  high  and  low,  alike,  from  the  high  official  to  the 
school  mistress  and  serving  girl,  even  in  our  day,  are  to 
be  found  secretly  consulting  the  Pythic  utterances  of  the 
two  former,  while  not  contemptible  Scientists  defend, 
and  crowds  of  people  witness  and  believe  in,  the  powers 
and  utterances  of  the  latter.  Defeats  do  not  dampen  the 


THE    WRITTEN    GOSPELS.  2OI 

audacity  of  the  performers,  because  they  know  that  ex- 
posures do  not  shake  the  confidence  of  their  dupes.  A 
single  semblance  of  success,  with  them,  will  outweigh  a 
thousand  failures.  How  could  it  be  otherwise  ?  Their 
faith,  based  upon  an  itching  hope,  is  not  the  offspring  of 
reason,  and  therefore  is  not  amenable  to  its  laws.  It  is 
born  of  a  persistent  aspiration,  and  is  therefore  per- 
sistent itself, — even  in  defiance  of  reason,  save  as  reason 
shall  come  to  its  aid.  In  the  darkened  rooms  of  the 
"  medium,"  with  their  very  flesh  creeping  at  the  idea  of 
the  presence  of  a  ghost,  most  people  are  incapable  of 
detecting  the  most  bare-faced  impostures  and  cheapest 
juggleries  ;  while  every  woman  who  has  called  for  the 
presence  of  some  departed  friend,  would  equally  recognize 
their  friend  in  the  one,  same  dim  and  misty  face  exhibited 
by  the  thaumaturgist. 


In  view  of  these  facts,  then,  we  should  be  unfaithful  to 
truth  and  reason,  were  we  to  fail  in  taking  into  account 
these  two  potent  influences  in  estimating  the  evidence 
furnished  us  by  those  ancient  religious  devotees  touching 
their  own  miracle-borned  religion. 


2O2  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

AN  EPOCH  OF  MYTHS  AND  MIRACLES. 

To  those  who  accept  ready-made  opinions  with  a 
faith  so  blind  as  to  enable  them  to  read  the  history  of 
human  actions  and  beliefs  without  ever  seeing  beyond 
the  glamour  cast  by  their  own  inherited  creeds,  it  may 
become  a  question  whether  the  wonderful  Age  which 
gave  birth  to  their  own  marvellous  religion  and  Man- 
God,  could  also  warm  into  life  other  miraculous  beings> 
make  other  Men-Gods,  and  weave  other  legends,  myths 
and  miracle-stories  similar  to  their  own.  A  very  cursory 
reading  of  history,  however,  will  show  that  the  period  in- 
cluding the  early  development  and  triumph  of  Chris- 
tianity and  a  few  centuries  preceding  the  birth  of  Jesus, 
was  especially  prolific  in  these  regards.  During  no 
other  similar  period,  perhaps,  should  we  find  the 
apotheosis  of  men  so  prevalent  or  the  myth-forming  and 
miracle-producing  tendency  so  active.  It  embraces  the 
time  when  the  Roman  power  was  rapidly  approaching  its 
zenith  and  the  earlier  ages  of  its  supreme  triumph.  At 
the  birth  of  Jesus  the  struggling  peoples  had  already 
ceased  to  dispute  the  supremacy  of  Rome,  and  for  an 
age  there  had  been  unexampled  political  repose — the 
universal  peace  of  subjection.  The  entire  political  and 


AN    EPOCH    OF    MYTHS    AND    MIRACLES  2O3 

military  power  of  the  world  centred  around  one  impe- 
rial figure  at  Rome.  The  recuperated  energies  of  the 
subject  nations  were  deprived  of  their  usual  outlet  in  the 
presence  of  the  resistless  legions  of  the  Empire,  and 
were  driven  to  find  vent  in  the  fields  of  mental,  moral  and 
religious  development.  This  enforced  leisure  had  not 
come  too  soon.  Then,  if  ever,  Humanity  demanded  a 
new  religious  birth.  Intelligent  Thinkers  had  long  since 
smiled  at  the  old  popular  myths  and  symbolizations  of 
the  Egyptian,  Greek  and  Roman  Mythologies ;  and  the 
old  notions  had  gradually  ceased  to  satisfy  the  average 
intelligence  and  aspirations  of  the  people.  Men  had 
also  outgrown  the  iron  spirit  of  their  old  legal  codes. 
The  world,  in  short,  was  ripe  for  a  religious  revolution, — 
as  the  growth  and  triumph  of  Christianity  demonstrated. 

The  Polytheistic  peoples  needed,  and  were  partially 
prepared  for,  a  more  unified  and  Monotheistic  con- 
ception of  the  controlling  powers  of  the  Universe.  That 
they  could  leap,  at  a  single  bound,  from  the  worship  of  a 
whole  hierarchy  of  Gods  and  divine  beings,  to  the  con- 
ception of  a  sole,  all-controlling  God,  was  not  to  have 
been  expected.  The  new  religion  would  have  to,  and 
did,  accommodate  itself  to  their  mental  condition,  and 
bridge  the  way  for  them  from  Polytheism  to  Monotheism 
The  fanciful  Greek  must  be  aided  to  abandon  his 
Olympian  hierarchy  and  his  poetic  world  of  inferior 
deities,  by  offering  him  substitutes — by  offering,  say, 
three  Gods  in  one,  and  a  hierarchy  consisting  of  "  Sons  of 
God,"  Mother  of  God,"  Archangels,  Angels  and  Saints. 


2O4  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

A  new  .God  was  not  the  need  of  the  Jew.  He  was 
already  a  Monotheist.  He  really  needed,  but  was  illy 
prepared  for,  a  God  of  more  humane,  equitable  and 
catholic  nature  and  sympathies — a  beneficent  God  of 
Humanity,  and  not  a  "  God  of  the  Jews."  He  was  po- 
litically enslaved,  and  his  religion  and  civilization  were 
fast  crystallizing  into  the  immobility  of  Pharisaic  For- 
malism. His  solitary  hope  of  redemption  from  all  this 
was  in  the  Messiah.  The  prophetic  Messianic  idea  and 
hope  formed  the  true  progressive  and  ideal  element  in 
his  religion.  Through  this,  and  not  otherwise,  could  he 
be  reached.  His  people  had  early  longed  for,  and  anti- 
cipated a  regeneration  of  the  World,  but  it  was  to  be 
achieved  at  Jerusalem,  and  by  their  own  God,  and 
through  the  agency  and  premiership  of  their  own  race, 
and  must  be  heralded  and  accompanied  by  all  the 
"  signs  "  and  indicia  predicted  by  their  own  prophets. 
His  ideal  had  already  been*  fixed  for  him  by  his  God, 
speaking  through  the  mouths  of  his  prophets.  He  could 
not  give  up  the  Old,  which  had  thus  been  fixed  by  his 
God  :  the  New  must  conform  to,  and  exemplify  it.  This 
prophesied  Saviour  constituted  just  that  cloudy,  un- 
determinable and  plastic  element  which  could  readily  be 
mythically  moulded  to  suit  the  views  and  aspirations  of 
Gentile  peoples  who  had  no  previous  knowledge  of  the 
Jewish  prophecies,  nor  fixed  traditional  interpretations 
of  them.  But  to  the  Jew,  who  had  all  this,  the  proposed 
Messiah  would  have  to  come  with  all  the  traditionally-es- 
tablished "  signs,"  or  need  not  come  at  all.  To  him,  the 
Messianic  Conception  had  long  assumed  a  form  too  def- 
inite and  fixed  to  yield  to  the  pressure  and  requirements 
of  the  myth-world.  These  "  signs  "  were  not  a  subject 


AN    EPOCH    OF    MATHS    AND    MIRACLES.  2O5 

of  doubt:  they  were  to  be  exemplified  in  one  of  the 
Hebrew  "  princes  of  the  blood  " — by  a  "  Son  of  David," 
were  to  occur  in  their  own  midst,  and  be  subject  to  the 
intelligent  decision  of  their  own  race, — especially  of  the 
priests  of  their  God  and  the  religious  Rulers  of  the  peo- 
ple. When  he  did  come,  there  could  be  no  question  as 
to  his  identity.  The  sanctity  of  the  supposed  divine 
prophecies  of  the  Jews  might  be  appropriated,  and  their 
fragments  be  perverted  for  giving  color  to  the  claims  of 
a  religious  Saviour  of  the  unadvised  Gentiles,  but  the 
Messiah  of  the  Jews  who  had,  for  a  thousand  years,  been 
anticipated  according  to  a  fixed  idea  of  Christ,  must 
actually  fill  the  measure  of  the  established  conception. 
They  were  willing  to  believe,  but  it  must  be  upon  open 
and  practical  proof,  not  upon  myths  and  rumors.  Never, 
indeed,  had  the  Jews  been  so  anxious  to  be  enabled  to 
believe,  nor  so  feverishly  expectant  of  the  coming  of 
their  Christ  as  during  the  -Age  including  the  career  of 
Jesus  and  up  to  the  final  fall  of  Jerusalem.  All  hearts 
were  praying  and  watching  for  the  Prince  who  was  to 
re-establish  them  in  more  than  their  ancient  glory,  and 
should  transfer  the  seat  of  influence  and  universal 
dominion  from  Rome  to  Jerusalem.  Under  the  galling 
yoke  of  the  Gentiles  and  wrought  into  a  state  of  spirit- 
ual Exaltation  and  feverish  expectancy,  the  multitude 
were  in  the  exact  condition  to  force  the  prophecies  and 
foster  Messianic  pretenders  ;  while  even  the  wisest  were 
anxious  to  believe  where  belief  was  possible.  Jesus 
himself  recognized  this  state  of  things  and  anticipated 
its  production  of  many  "  false  Christs." 

Such  feverish  desires    and    anticipations    were  but 


2O6  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

the  natural  forerunners  of  what  occurred — were,  in  fact, 
a  part  both  of  the/  processes  and  agencies  by  which  the 
inevitable  revolution  was  to  be  effected.  Nature  was 
then  in  the  act  of  closing  one  of  her  long  periods  of  in- 
cubation, and  on  the  eve  of  hatching  that  religious  off- 
spring which,  for  centuries  after,  she  continued  to  nurse 
into  life  and  vigor.  This  new  heir  of  Progress  could  not 
have  been  born  without  the  accustomed  preparations, 
anticipations  and  symptoms — without  the  fever  and  un- 
rest attending  all  parturitions  and  revolutions.  Never 
had  there  been  a  greater  birth,  nor  was  there  ever  a  birth 
followed  by  more  sleepless  care  and  coddling, —  never  were 
the  upturnings,  clippings,  patchings,  remodellings,  re- 
trimings,  re-adaptations  and  re-namings  so  numerous 
and  complete. 

The  robes  of  this  new  heir  were  neither  of  new 
material,  nor  of  a  new  pattern.  The  myths-moulds  in 
which  the  divine  conception,  the  divine  nature,  and  the 
miraculous  nativity,  life  and  powers  of  Jesus  were 
moulded,  after  his  supposed  resurrection,  were  not  new 
to  the  world.  In  more  or  less  modified  forms  they  had 
often  appeared  before.  Among  the  many  races  who 
furnished  materials  or  types  for  Christian  ideas,  the  Brah- 
mins and  Buddhists  have,  perhaps,  furnished  those  for 
the  most  important  and  fundamental"  ones.  In  Chrishna 
and  in  Vishu  and  his  incarnations  we  find  very  full  and 
complete  suggestions  of  the  Christ  idea  of  the  Christians 
and  of  the  fundamental  conceptions  of  Christian  Theol- 
ogy. In  regard  to  some  of  the  mythic  features  of  the 
Christ,  however,  more  literally  exact  types  were  found 
in  the  mythic  growths  of  the  people  who  were  long  the 


AN    EPOCH    OF    MYTHS    AND    MIRACLES.  2O/ 

masters  of  Judea  and  were  still  residing  in  Palestine  in 
large  numbers,  and  were  in  daily  intercourse  with  Chris- 
tians everywhere,  during  those  first  ages.  The  idea  of  the 
divine  and  immaculate  conception  of  Jesus  by  a  virgin 
mother,  had  already  been  paralleled  by  the  Greeks. 
Plato  had  been  claimed  by  them  to  have  been  the  child 
of  the  Sun-God,  Apollo,  by  Perictone,  a  virgin  mother. 
Perictone  was  betrothed  to  Aristion,  but  because  of  the 
appearance  of  Apollo  to  the  betrothed  husband  in  a 
dream,  and  his  announcement  that  Perictone  was  with 
child  by  the  God  himself,  she  was  kept  pure  from  all 
matrimonial  intercourse  with  her  husband,  until  her 
accouchment.  Any  one  who  can  read  this  account  in 
connection  with  the  account  of  the  affair  between 
Joseph,  Mary  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  described  in  the  first 
chapter  of  Matthew,  and  fail  to  perceive  that  they  are 
reading  a  "twice  told  tale,"  is  indeed  blind. 

Pythagoras  had  a  similar  origin,  and  performed  mira-  , 
cles  equalling  those  of  Jesus.  But  it  was  in  his  own  Age 
and  in  the  adjoining  country  of  Syria,  that  we  find  the  tru- 
est type,  and  more  than  rival,  of  Jesus  as  a  thaumaturgist. 
During  their  lives,  the  works  and  fame  of  Jesus  bore  no 
comparison,  in  their  notoriety  and  magnitude,  to  those 
of  the  Syrian  miracle-worker,  Appolonius  of  Tyana. 
The  life  and  performances  of  this  singular  man  were 
very  startling.  Sir  Edward'Bulwer  gives  a  summary  of 
some  of  his  performances  in  the  mocking  tone  assumed 
by  all  Christians  when  speaking  of  all  other  wonder- 
workers save  their  own,  and  in  the  following  language  : 
"  All  sorts  of  prodigies  accompanied  the  birth  of  this 
gentleman.  Proteus,  the  Egyptian  God,  foretold  to  his 


2O8  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

mother  yet  pregnant,  that  it  was  he  himself  who  was 
about  to  re-appear  in  the  World  through  her  agency. 
*  *  Appollonius  knew  the  language  of  birds,  read 
men's  thoughts  in  their  bosoms,  and  walked  about  with 
a  familiar  spirit.  He  was  a  devil  of  a  fellow  with  a  devil, 
and  induced  a  mob  to  stone  a  poor  demon  of  a  venerable 
and  mendicant  appearance,  who,  after  the  lapidary 
operation,  changed  into  a  huge  dog.  He  raised  the 
dead.  He  passed  a  night  with  Achilles,  and  when 
Domitian  was  murdered  (at  Rome)  he  called  out  aloud 
(although  at  Ephesus  at  the  moment), — '  Strike  the 
tyrant ! '  The  end  of  so  honest  and  great  a  man  was 
worthy  of  his  life.  It  would  seem  that  he  ascended  into 
Heaven"  He  certainly  figured  much  more  extensively 
and  openly  than  did  Jesus,  his  neighbor  of  Nazareth,  and 
his  audiences  and  witnesses  were  far  more  varied, 
intelligent  and  disinterested.  He  discussed  his  theories 
and  performed  his  alleged  miracles  before  the  most  in- 
telligent bodies  and  classes  in  every  country  from  the 
Tiber  to  the  Ganges  and  the  Nile.  His  powers  of  heal- 
ing were  considered  miraculous  and  divine,  and  priests 
and  people  alike  paid  him  divine  honors.  His  wonder- 
ful powers  secured  him  the  confidence  of,  and  a  control- 
ling influence  over,  the  Emperor  Vespasian  and  his  son 
Titus,  the  conqueror  of  Jerusalem.  At  his  death  temples 
were  erected  in  his  honor,  and  he  was  worshipped  as  a 
God;  while  cities  contended  for  the  honor  of  having  been 
his  birth-place,  and  the  successful  competitor  was  raised 
to  the  dignity  of  a  "  sacred  city." 

We  are  also  assured  by  one  of  the  Christian  Fathers, 
that  the  Simon  Magus  of  the  New  Testament — a  rival 


AN  EPOCH  OF  MYTHS  AND  MIRACLES.      2OQ 

of  the  Apostles  in  wonder-working, — finally  went  to 
Rome  and  was  there  worshipped  as  a  God.  And  we 
know  that  it  was  then  the  custom  of  the  Roman  Senate 
to  apotheosize  their  Emperors  and  decree  them  divine 
honors  and  worship, — sometimes  even  in  their  lifetimes ; 
and  all  this  during  the  miracle-working  and  myth-form- 
ing ages  of  Christianity.  And  speedily  following,  we 
find  a  like  phase  of  development  entered  into  by  the 
Arabs,  and  producing  that  still  more  striking  and  suc- 
cessful parallel  to  Jesus, — Mahomet. 

But  in  the  number,  extravagance  and  grotesqueness 
of  her  legends  and  her  mythic  formations,  no  people  or 
sect  could'vie  with  the  early  Christians.  Consisting,  as 
the  early  Church  did,  mainly  of  slaves  and  the  lower 
classes,  she  formed  a  rich  mould  for  such  luxurious 
growths.  From  the  beginning,  the  disciples  claimed 
special  divine  endowments  and  gifts,  and  cited  them  in 
proof  of  the  divine  approbation  of  their  assertions  and 
doctrines.  They  raved  in  "unknown  tongues"  till  peo- 
ple thought  them  drunk — in  languages  which  St.  Paul, 
however,  assures  us  could  not  be  understood  by  anybody 
until  it  was  explained  by  somebody  having  the  divine 
gift  of  "interpretation."  They  claimed  to  have  the 
power,  also,  of  working  miracles  like  Jesus.  Besides 
these  general  gifts  of  the  "  Faithful,"  there  were  in- 
numerable cases  of  special  endowments  and  sanctity 
won  by  self-abnegation  and  abuse.  For  centuries,  the 
more  fanatical  of  those  early  Christians  flocked  by  tens- 
of-thousands  and  even  by  hundreds-of-thousands  to  the 
deserts  of  Syria  and  Africa,  and  there,  abandoning  the 
world  and  all  the  duties  of  life,  gave  themselves  up  to 

14 


2IO  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

the  most  loathsome  filth  and  most  appalling  and  disgust- 
ing asceticism,  for  the  avowed  purpose  of  crushing  out 
every  earthly  desire  and  hope  and  every  mortal  tie  and 
human  sympathy — in  short,  everything  that  made  them 
human.  These  grim,  emaciated,  and  foully  filthy  mono- 
maniacs and  fanatics  of  the  desert,  formed  the  subjects 
and  neuclei  around  which  grew  up  unnumbered  legend- 
ary and  mythical  stories,  abounding  in  marvels  and 
miracles, — most  of  them  too  absurd  and  childish  for  us 
to  conceive  how  sane  men  could  ever  have  invented  or 
believed  them.  And  yet  these  sad  figures  of  the  desert 
answer  to  the  roll-call  of  our  Christian  saints,  and  receive 
a  worship  from  millions  of  Christians,  more  devout  than 
was  ever  paid  to  JUQO  or  Vulcan.  •  »•  • 

Higher  still  than  these  or  even  than  the  eternal 
angels  themselves,  have  been  placed  the  semi-apothe- 
osized Apostles ;  and  higher  even  than  the  Archan- 
gels sits  the  "  Prince  of  the  Apostles,"  controlling  the 
very  keys  of  Heaven.  Higher  still, — higher  than  all 
beings  below  God  himself,  sits, — radiant  and  crowned, 
— the  "  Queen  of  Heaven  "  and  "  Mother  of  God," — 
the  once  aged,  meek  and  much-snubbed  Nazarene 
mother ; — by  far  the  most  divinely-human  creation  of  all 
the  galaxy. 

&'M    'V.'ir 
High  over  all  these,  however,  and  forever  lost  in  the 

very  being  and  identity  of  God,  has  vanished  the 
old  identity  of  Jesus  the  carpenter  of  Nazareth : — 
the  ultimate  product  and  supreme  symbol  of  cen- 
turies of  conclusive  and  creative  religious  evolution! 
Can  any  rational  person  cast  a  glance  over  this  list  of 


AN    EPOCH    OF    MYTHS    AND    MIRACLES.  211 

mythic  creations  and  marvellous  growths,  and  still  hesi- 
tate to  believe  in  the  plastic,  myth-creating  powers  and 
tendencies  of  the  Apostolic  and  Saintly  ages  ?  Need  we 
either  fear  or  hesitate  to  affirm  that  this  Christian  de- 
velopment and  growth  was  but  another  and  final  step 
in  religious  evolution  and  progressive  concrete  symbol- 
ism : — having  its  lowest  forms  and  expressions,  (such  as 
its  use  of  the  miraculous  virtues  of  the  shrines,  bones, 
clothes,  teeth  and  toe-nails  of  saints,) — still  resting  upon 
the  original  fetichism  from  which  it  sprung,  and  this,  its 
last  and  highest  concrete  expression,  bodily  merged  in 
the  Infinite  God  ?  Can  we  doubt  that  it  was  a  grand 
stretch  of  human  development,  embodying  within  itself, 
and  actually  constituting,  a  metamorphosed  epitome  of 
all  previous  phases  of  religious  evolution. 


When,  in  view  of  all  considerations  mentioned,  we 
examine,  as  evidence,  and  judicially  determine  the  value 
of,  the  sayings,  doings  and  beliefs  of  the  religious 
devotees,  fanatics  and  interested  partisans,  handed  down 
to  us  in  the  careless,  fraudulent  and  unmerciful  manner 
we  have  considered,  by  the  traditions  and  the  fugitive 
and  anonymous  writings  of  that  incandescent,  plastic, 
superstitious  and  revolutionary  epoch, — May  we  not — 
nay,  must  we  not  cast  away  the  soul-paralyzing  and 
reason-defying  awe  and  terror  which  an  idea  of  their 
divine  sacredness, — fostered  by  the  decrees  and  exhorta- 
tions of  an  interested  priesthood  and  accepted  and 
instilled  into  us  by  an  ignorant  and  superstitious  an- 


212  JESUS   AND   RELIGION. 

cestry, — has  inspired  us  ?  Is  it  not  the  plainest  dictate 
of  common  sense  and  common  manhood  to  treat  such 
evidence  as  we  would  the  tradition  history  of  all  early 
ages  and  the  similar  stories  and  legends  of  all  other 
religions  originating  under  like  phases  of  development  ? 


THE   EFFECT   OF   THE    RESURRECTION    OF  JESUS.      213 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE     EFFECT     OF    THE    RESURRECTION    OF    JESUS    UPON 
THE   WITNESSES    AND    THEIR    TESTIMONY. 

ALTHOUGH  the  effect  of  the  resurrection  upon  the 
evidence  of  the  disciples  and  followers  of  Jesus  has  been 
noticed  in  a  general  way,  that  influence  was  so  specific 
and  decisive  as  to  make  a  clear  comprehension  of  it 
essential  to  a  just  appreciation  of  the  value  of  the 
evidence  furnished  by  the  Gospels.  As  has  been  con- 
tended, Christianity,  or  the  possibility  of  it,  did  not  exist 
until  some  thirty-six  hours  after  Jesus  was  taken  from 
the  cross.  When  he  then  re-appeared  to  his  disciples,  it 
was  inevitable.  There  is,  as  we  have  seen,  not  the 
slightest  difficulty  upon  this  point.  The  Gospels  have 
left  nothing  to  inference  or  construction  in  regard  to  it. 
The  public  career  of  Jesus  finally  closed  with  his  descent 
from  the  cross.  This  put  to  flight  the  last  possible  hope 
which  his  followers  might  have  previously  entertained 
concerning  his  earthly  prospects.  They  regarded  him 
as  dead.  And  with  his  death,  died  their  hopes.  As  his 
aiders  and  abettors  they  themselves  were  in  hiding  for 
their  own  safety.  This  fact,  as  well  as  the  entire  after 
conduct  and  language  both  of  Jesus  and  themselves, 
shows  that  they  neither  had  expected,  nor  been  taught  to 


214  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

expect,  any  post  mortem  manifestations,  or  the  inaugur- 
ation of  any  merely  religious  movement. 

It  is  without  the  pale  of  rational  belief,  that  Jesus 
had  taught  his  disciples  that  all  their  efforts  would  end 
in  his  own  ignominious  failure  and  execution,  but  that 
he  would  return  to  life  on  the  third  day  as  the  head 
of  religious  movement  ;  or,  had  such  prediction  been 
made,  it  is  not  less  incredible  that,  after  one  part  of  it 
had  been  so  tragically  fulfilled,  not  one  of  all  his  dis- 
ciples should  have,  even  then,  recalled  it,  and  have  an- 
ticipated his  resurrection.  Nor  is  it  credible  that  he 
could  have  induced  his  disciples  to  follow  him  around 
for  years,  aid  him  in  his  efforts  to  be  accepted  by  the 
Jews  as  their  temporal  prince,  and  to  finally  proclaim 
and  herald  him  as  King  at  Jerusalem,  as  they  did  do,  had 
Jesus  told  them,  and  desired  them  to  understand,  that 
their  whole  labor  was  to  end  in  utter  failure  and  public 
ignominy, — would  prove,  in  fact,  a  mere  costly  and  tragic 
sham.  Jesus  could  not  fail  to  make  them  understand  so 
plain  a  fact,  if  he  had  tried  to  make  them  do  so.  Nor 
would  Jesus  have  so  long  labored  lo  win  over  the  people 
to  his  cause,  have  suffered  himself  to  be  proclaimed 
king,  and  thereby  subject  both  himself  and  his  followers 
to  the  penalties  of  treason,  have  abused  the  Jews  for 
not  accepting  him,  and  then  stood  above  Jerusalem  and 
wept  over  her  rejection  of  him,  if  he  had  all  along  known 
that  he  was  not  to  be  accepted,  but  had  voluntarily  come 
into  the  world  expressly  to  be  what  he  wept  for  having 
become.  The  idea  that  Jesus  either  foreknew  his  fate  or 
tried  to  make  his  disciples  foreknow  it  is  rendered  absurd 
by  the  entire  facts.  It  was  wholly  an  afterthought,  a 


THE    EFFECT    OF    THE    RESURRECTION    OF   JESUS.       215 

lame  effort  to  cure  the  palpable  objection  that,  if  Jesus 
were  a  divine  person,  he  must  and  would  have  known  all 
about  it. 

This  whole  matter,  however,  is  put  still  further  be- 
yond doubt  by  the  conduct  and  positive  declarations  of 
both  Jesus  and  his  disciples  after  the  resurrection.  In 
talking  to  Jesus  himself,  on  the  road  to  Emmaus,  after 
his  re-appearance,  his  disciples,  not  recognizing  him, 
speak  of  him  as  follows  : — "  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  which 
was  a  prophet  mighty  in  deed  and  in  word  before  the 
Lord  and  all  the  people.  And  now  the  chief  priests  and 
rulers  delivered  him  to  be  condemned,  and  have  crucified 
him.  But  we  trusted  that  it  had  been  he  which  sJiould 
have  redeemed  Israel ;  and  besides  all  this,  to-day  is  the 
third  day  since  those  things  were  done.  Yea,  and  cer- 
tain women  of  our  company  made  us  astonished,  which 
were  early  at  the  sepulchre :  And  when  they  found  not 
his  body,  they  came,  saying,  that  they  had  also  seen  a 
vision  of  angels  which  said  he  was  alive.  And  certain 
of  them  which  were  with  us  went  to  the  sepulchre,  and 
found  it  even  so  as  the  women  had  said :  but  him  they 
saw  not.  Then  he  (Jesus)  said  unto  them,  O  fools  and 
slow  of  heart  to  believe  all  that  the  prophets  have 
spoken  :  Ought  not  Christ  to  have  suffered  these  things, 
and  to  enter  into  his  glory  ?  And  beginning  at  Moses 
and  all  the  prophets,  he  expounded  unto  them  in  all  the 
scripture  concerning  himself" — (see  Luke,  xxiv.  19,  et 
seq.).  Here  we  have  the  views  of  both  parties.  The 
disciples,  before  his  execution,  had  regarded  him  as  a 
prophet,  and  had  trusted  that  he  was  the  expected  prince 
who  was  to  "  redeem  Israel,"  but  were  mistaken  and  dis- 


2l6  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

appointed,  since  he  had  actually  been  executed  ;  but  that 
strange  stories  had  been  started  about  his  being  alive, 
etc.  Jesus  expresses  no  astonishment,  in  his  turn,  at 
his  disciples  for  forgetting  what  he  had  told  them,  nor 
did  he  remind  them  of  any  such  fact,  or  upbraid  them 
for  want  of  faith  in  him  or  his  declarations,  but,  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  this,  he  rebukes  them  for  not  having 
faith  in  the  prophecies,  which,  he  contended,  had  foretold 
these  results.  All  this  would  seem  clear  enough.  In 
fact,  the  Fourth  Gospel  declares  in  express  terms,  in  ex- 
planation of  the  ignorance  of  the  disciples  about  the  fact 
of  resurrection,  that  "  as  yet,  they  knew  not  the  scripture 
that  he  must  arise  again  from  the  dead."  Here,  as  with 
Jesus'  own  language,  there  is  no  thought,  hint  or  ques- 
tion as  to  the  fact  of  Jesus  having  ever  told  them 
about  it. 

Being,  therefore,  unprepared  for  such  an  event,  his 
disciples  were  astonished  and  even  appalled  by  his  re- 
appearance in  the  flesh.  But,  when  once  forced  to  real- 
ize the  fact,  and  induced  to  believe  that  it  was  in  fulfil- 
ment of  the  Messianic  prophecies,  the  effects  were 
decisive — there  was  no  more  lack  of  faith.  It  was  no 
longer  Jesus  the  prophet,  but  the  Christ,  the  Messiah, 
who  talked  to  them.  Their  "  prophet  "  had  been  lost  on 
the  Cross,  to  be  re-embraced  as  a  God  after  his  resur- 
rection. The  cause  which  had  gone  down  in  shame  and 
defeat  on  Calvary,  had  been  more  than  resurrected  by 
the  divine  re-animation  of  their  Man-God.  Henceforth 
its  scope  was,  not  a  Jewish  triumph  or  a  Jewish  crown, 
but  the  conquest  of  a  World  and  a  crown  of  immortal 
glory  ! 


THE  EFFECT  OF  THE  RESURRECTION  OF  JESUS. 

Had  Jesus  passed  away  as  most  other  executed  per- 
sons, and  as  his  disciples  supposed  he  had,  that  little 
band  of  women  and  fishermen  would  have  slipped  out  of 
their  hiding  place  as  soon  as  their  safety  would  have 
permitted,  and  have  returned  to  Galilee,  and  would  have 
again  been  found  at  their  old  labors  along  the  shores  of 
the  Galilean  Sea.  As  it  turned  out,  however,  they  be- 
came the  witnesses  of  a  new  faith  and  the  evangelists  of 
a  new  religion  ! 

One  of  the  most  marked  and  important  effects  of  the 
supposed  resurrection  of  Jesus,  was  the  new  light  which, 
in  the  minds  both  of  his  first  and  subsequent  disciples, 
it  threw  back  upon  all  his  former  life  and  sayings,  and 
the  consequent  additions,  suppressions  and  modifications 
which  it  produced  in  our  accounts  of  them.  The  old 
familiarity  which  permitted  John  to  loll  upon  his  breast 
and  Peter  to  rebuke  him,  was  transmuted  into  an  un- 
questioning awe  of  the  risen  "  Son  of  God."  The  divine 
aureola  which  surrounded  the  brow  of  the  new  Deity 
threw  a  new  and  weird  light  back  upon  the  events, 
scenes  and  discourses  of  their  friend  and  prophet — over 
facts  which,  at  the  time,  had  only  suggested  the  query  of 
whether  he  might  not  be  "  John  the  Baptist  "  or  "  Elias," 
or  "  that  prophet,"  and  the  propriety  of  declaring  him 
King,  but  had  only  suggested  to  the  "  wise  and  prudent  " 
the  presence  of  a  blasphemer,  a  seditious  agitator,  and  a 
dangerous  monomaniac.  Their  imaginations,  under  this 
disturbing  and  distorting  light,  gave  the  old  facts  a  divine 
coloring  and  new  forms  and  significance,  and  created  facts 
to  fill  the  outlines  of  their  conception  of  a  divine  incarna- 
tion. Thenceforth  the  fragments  of  Messianic  prophe- 


2l8  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

cies  and  their  conceptions  of  the  appropriate  acts  and 
accompaniments  of  a  Son  of  God  were  injected  into,  and 
dominated,  the  actual  life  of  the  son  of  Joseph  and  Mary. 
With  such  persons,  acting  under  such  inducements  and 
conditions,  such  results  were  natural  and  inevitable. 
Just  such  metamorphoses  and  mythic  addenda  and 
adornments  grew  up  around  the  birth,  life  and  death  of 
Mahomet,  Guatama  and  other  founders  of  religions,  as 
grew  up  around  those  of  Jesus.  If  these  persons  were 
superhuman,  there  would  have  been,(and  the  desire  was 
that  there  should  have  been,)  the  accredited  concomitants  of 
the  Divine,  in  their  characters  and  careers.  If  they  were 
the  fulfilments  of  divine  promises  and  prophecies,  they 
must  have  also  been  what  such  promises  and  prophecies 
had  said  they  should  be.  Such  has  been  the  course 
of  reasoning  :  and  the  traditions  and  accounts  of  such 
men  have  been  made  to  conform  to  such  desires  and  be- 
liefs. If  we  hold  up  our  hands  in  holy  horror  at  this,  we 
but  horrify  ourselves  at  the  indubitable  course  of  Nature 
and  the  divine  method  of  developing  Humanity.  This 
tendency  to  form  post  factum  predictions  and  opinions, 
and  to  clothe  our  idols  with  the  livery  of  our  ideals,  is, 
indeed,  one  of  the  most  common  and  indubitable  traits 
of  the  human  character — even  in  more  common  and 
every-day  affairs  ;  and  more  especially  is  it  exhibited  by 
ignorant  and  superstitious  people. 

All  truths  must  be  consistent  and  congruous.  In  a 
vague  and  unconscious  way,  all  people  perceive  this,  and 
are  almost  as  unconsciously  impelled  to  endeavor  to 
coerce  the  facts  upon  which  they  base  their  beliefs  into 
some  kind  of  accord  and  consistency  with  each  other,  as 


THE    EFFECT    OF    THE    RESURRECTION    OF   JESUS. 

well  as  to  compel  them  support  the  theories  or  beliefs 
they  are  supposed  to  verify.  Our  vanity  and  self-com- 
placency impel  us,  also,  to  reconcile  our  present  beliefs 
and  the  present  facts  with  our  past  beliefs — to  perform 
that  very  common  operation  of  imagining  that  we  always 
believed  and  foresaw  the  facts  as  they  have  actually  oc- 
curred. In  short,  men  habitually  tend  to  force  an  agree- 
ment between  their  beliefs  at  different  periods,  and  also 
between  the  facts  and  their  beliefs,  by  either  denying 
their  beliefs  or  remodelling  the  facts.  They  adapt  the 
music  to  instrument,  as  well  as  change  instruments  to 
suit  the  music.  The  traveller  who  should  converse 
freely  with  his  unknown  companion,  without  perceiving 
anything  remarkable  in  him,  would,  upon  being  informed 
that  he  had  been  conversing  with  a  Bismarck  or  Napo- 
leon, eagerly  review  the  whole  scene,  and  feel  quite  sure, 
not  only  that  there  were  Napoleonic  or  Bismarckian 
traits  cropping  out  everywhere,  but  that  he  had  actually 
felt  there  was  something  more  than  common  about  them, 
at  the  time  ;  and  were  he  to  frequently  narrate  the  scene 
for  twenty  years,  it  would  insensibly  and  unconsciously 
grow  more  characteristic  of  those  great  men  as  the  years 
went  by.  The  fact  is,  that  men's  minds,  both  con- 
sciously and  unconsciously,  play  sad  tricks  when  dealing 
with  the  marvellous  or  supernatural.  They  seem  to 
"  swing  loose  "  or  "  fly  wild  "  like  the  needle  in  presence 
of  a  magnet. 


This  new  influence  was  as  prompt  as  it  was  potent. 
Under  the  very  first  impulse  from  its  stimulant,  Mary 


220  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

Magdalen  could  not  conceive  the  wonderful  event  of  the 
resurrection  as  being  even  communicated  to  her  in  an 
ordinary  way,  but  declared  that  she  had  seen  a  "vision 
of  angels  "  who  told  her  that  Jesus  was  alive.  The  dis- 
ciples who  conversed  long  with  him.  on  the  road  to 
Emmaus,  with  no  hint  as  to  his  identity,  had  no  sooner 
discovered,  by  his  manner  of  blessing  the  bread,  who  he 
really  was,  than  they  forthwith  discovered  that  both  of 
their  hearts  had  actually  "  burned  within  them  "  while 
he  was  with  them  by  the  way.  The  Gospel  of  Matthew 
(so-called),  not  content  with  the  Magdalen's  "  vision  of 
angels,"  and  forgetting  that  the  male  disciples  had  re- 
garded the  whole  thing  as  a  mere  idle  tale  of  the  women, 
has  deemed  it  appropriate  to  get  another  earthquake  to 
herald  the  fact,  as  it  had  for  announcing  his  death  on 
the  cross,  and  tells  about  angels  with  countenances  "like 
lightning."  Thenceforth,  all  that  pertained  to  Jesus  was 
made  to  conform,  as  far  as  might  be,  to  the  new  "situa- 
tion," and  as  rapidly  as  was  compatible  with  the  laws  of 
mental  adaptations.  Like  the  bed  of  Procrustes,  the 
supposed  divinity  and  Messiahship  of  the  resurrected 
Jesus  clipped  or  stretched  all  things  to  their  own  dimen- 
sions. Being  divine,  he  must  have  had  the  approved 
indicia  of  a  marvellous  birth  and  a  divine  power.  Being 
the  Messiah  of  the  Jews,  he  must,  of  necessity,  have  ful- 
filled the  signs  and  had  the  indicia  foretold  by  Jewish 
prophecy,  and  his  life  must  have  responded,  in  some 
form,  to  his  supposed  scriptural  or  historic  types.  Un- 
less these  indicia  accompanied  him,  how  could  he  be  the 
Messiah  and  incarnate  God  ?  The  person  and  the  char- 
acteristics and  indicia  mutually  implied  each  other.  But 
Jesus  had  been  divinely  endorsed  by  the  resurrection. 


THE  EFFECT  OF  THE  RESURRECTION  OF  JESUS.   221 

Must  not  the  characteristics  and  indicia  have  existed, 
also,  and  of  necessity  ?  Could  any  fact  be  more  sacred 
than  this  conclusion  ?  Must  not  all  other  facts  bend 
into  conformity  to  it  ? 

The  influence  here  insisted  upon  is  sufficiently  exem- 
plified by  the  view  taken  by  Luke  of  the  inability  of  the 
disciples  to  recognize  Jesus  after  walking  and  conversing 
with  him  on  the  road  to  Emmaus.  Now,  How  does  the 
gospel  account  for  this  ?  By  the  natural  and  only 
possible  way — namely,  that  he  was  unrecognizable — that 
his  appearance  was  changed  ?  Not  at  all.  That  would 
hot  correspond  with  his  new  and  conceded  character. 
The  Son  of  God — nay,  the  incarnate  God  himself,  could 
not  be  a  disguised  and  escaping  convict !  What  then 
was  left  ?  They  had  not,  and,  by  sight,  could  not  recog- 
nize their  well-known  master  when  talking  to  him  face- 
to-face  : — What  could  they  conclude  ?  Simply  what  they 
did  conclude, — namely,  that  "  their  eyes  were  holden  that 
they  should  not  know  him  ;  " — forgetting  that  neither 
their  eyes  nor  their  ears  were  "  holden  "  a  few  minutes 
after  when  they  did  know  him  by  his  language  and 
manner  at  table.  And  yet  the  gospel  naively  recites  this 
miraculous  and  absurd  excuse  in  the  same  direct  and 
positive  manner  in  which  it  recites  the  crucifixion — in  a 
manner  which  forbids  us  to  doubt  that  the  author  actu- 
ally believed  \t  !  Their  eyes  saw  everything  perfectly 
naturally  and  were  perfectly  competent  to  see  the  man  in 
their  usual  manner,  but  they  were  "  holden  "  from  seeing 
that  it  was  Jesus  ! — Not  a  word  of  explanation.  Their 
eyes  must  have  been  "  holden "  or  they  would  have 
known  him  instantly,  under  any  circumstances,  and  yet 


222  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

they  had  not  even  suspected  his  identity.  Such  men 
were  not  only  capable  of  all  this,  but  of  burning  men  at 
the  stake  for  doubting  it.  These  few  and  immediate  in- 
stances of  the  effect  of  the  resurrection  and  the  supposed 
nature  of  Jesus  are  given  here  merely  to  exemplify  the 
character  and  the  astounding  force  of  the  influence 
which  we  have  been  considering.  Do  they  not  strongly 
confirm  our  knowledge  of  human  nature  and  of  human 
history  in  this  regard,  and  satisfy  us  that  we  must  expect 
to  find  many  traces  of  the  mythic  and  unhistoric  in  the 
accounts  of  Jesus  given  by  such  men  ? 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       223 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

EXAMPLES     OF    THE     UNHISTORIC     AND     MYTHIC     IN     THE 
GOSPELS. 

THAT  we  may  not  seem  to  cast  discredit  upon  the 
narratives  in  the  Gospels  solely  upon  general  considera- 
tions or  on  principles  derived  from  human  history  and 
experience,  we  shall  present  some  of  the  more  prominent 
narratives  and  statements  now  appearing  in  our  Gospels, 
that  are  deemed  mythic  and  unreliable. 

Whether  these  unreliable  elements  were  born  of 
the  impulses  and  beliefs  of  the  first  disciples,  or  were 
originated  afterwards  and  gradually  injected  into  the 
traditions  or  record,  is  a  question  of  small  significance, 
in  determining  their  true  nature  and  worth,  since  the 
same  general  mental  conditions  and  influences  operated 
on  all  the  early  generations  of  Christian  devotees  and 
propagandists.  If  a  century  brought  changes  in  the 
Church,  they  consisted  chiefly  in  an  increase  of  intelli- 
gence and  decrease  of  honesty  and  of  honest  materials 
for  forming  or  correcting  opinions.  Every  age  brought 
its  modifications  and  adaptations.  If  the  first  generation 
had  better  opportunities  for  ascertaining  the  facts,  they 
also  had  greater  ignorance  and  superstition  to  misguide 
them,  being  more  exclusively  of  the  ignorant  classes. 


224  JESUS   AND   RELIGION. 

That  the  facts  were  actually  warped  and  remoulded  by 
both  the  first  and  succeeding  ages  is  certain,  and  it 
matters  little  by  whom. 


We  meet  with  unhistoric  elements  at  the  very  thresh- 
old of  our  Gospel  records, — in  their  accounts  of  the  gen- 
ealogy, conception,  birth  and  infancy  of  Jesus.  It  is 
scarcely  questionable  that  the  first  and  third  Gospels, 
in  which  these  accounts  appear,  were  written  by  persons 
who  were  wholly  ignorant  of  the  alleged  facts  concern- 
ing which  they  write,  as  well  as  ignorant  of  the  narratives 
of  each  other.  Neither  of  them  could  have  been  written 
by  an  Apostle,  as  they  now  stand.  There  was  an 
absolute  reticence  among  Jesus  and  his  friends,  during 
all  his  public  career,  concerning  his  infancy,  relation- 
ship and  early  life.  Whatever  hints  we  are  given  come 
from  charges  made  by  his  opponents — charges  which 
Jesus  met  only  with  stern  silence  or  total  evasion. 

We  are,  indeed,  without  any  reliable  knowledge  on 
these  subjects, — except,  perhaps,  as  to  his  parents  and 
their  children  and  family  residence.  After  the  resurrec- 
tion there  was  a  marked  change  in  this  singular  reti-. 
cence.  Minutely  detailed  accounts  of  the  alleged 
marvels  attending  his  birth  and  infancy  grew  and 
multiplied  exceedingly :  all  differing — all  absurdly  incon- 
sistent. None  of  these  had  any  legitimate  claims  to 
verity  over  the  others,  nor  was  any  real  investigation  or 
effort  ever  made  to  test  their  comparative  historic  merits 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       225 

or  to  ascertain  the  true  facts,  while  it  was  yet  possible 
to  have  ascertained  and  determined  them.  The  only 
test  to  which  they  were  ever  really  subjected  was  their 
supposed  suitabilities  to  the  views  and  purposes  of  those 
who  accepted  them.  Two  of  them  have,  in  some  form, 
found  their  way  into  our  Canon,  and  are  to  be  found  pre- 
fixed to  the  first  and  third  Gospels — which  for  the  sake 
of  habit  and  convenience  we  may  still  designate  as  those 
of  Matthew  and  Luke. 

It  would  seem  morally  certain  that,  had  these  mar- 
vellous evidences  of  the  divine  character  and  mission  of 
Jesus  have  really  existed  or  have  been  believed  in  by  the 
actors  in  the  first  drama  of  Christianity,  or  even  by  the 
recorders  of  their  performances,  every  page  and  line  of 
the  record  would  be  glowing  with  proofs  of,  or  references 
to  them.  And  yet  neither  Mark  nor  John  even  mention, 
or  hints,  a  word  concerning  these  early  and  inestimable 
marvels  ;  and  were,  evidently,  either  ignorant  of  the  true 
early  history  of  Jesus,  or  regarded  it  as  of  no  special  or 
favorable  significance.  Nor  do  the  Gospels  now  con- 
taining them,  further  refer  to  them,  or  show  that  they 
were  used  in  demonstration  or  aid  of  the  claims  of 
Jesus  ;  nor  are  they  elsewhere  used  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. These  facts  could  not  have  thus  existed,  if  there 
had  been  any  maintainable  or  even  probable  grounds  for 
the  assertion  of  these  miraculous  and  overwhelming  evi- 
dences attainable  by  Jesus  and  his  followers.  The  nar- 
ratives of  the  "  Nativity  "  seem  to  be  wholly  discon- 
nected fragments  prefixed  or  tacked  to  independent 
accounts  of  the  public  career  of  Jesus,  and,  so  far  as  any 
connection  or  use  is  made  of  them,  they  might,  barring 

15 


226  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

the  names,  have  been  added  excerpts  from  the  legends  of 
some  other  mythic  personage.  If  we  examine  all  the 
Gospels,  we  shall  find  that  they  all,  alike,  commence 
their  gospel  narratives  with  the  appearance  and  preach- 
ing of  John  the  Baptist,  and  treat  only  of  the  after 
career  of  Jesus,  if  we  strike  out  these  two  disconnected 
stories  of  his  genealgy,  infancy  and  childhood  of  Jesus-. 
In  both  Matthew  and  Luke,  we  find  that,  after  these 
stories,  there  is  an  abrupt  and  long  and  disconnected 
break  ;  and  that,  were  we  to  detach  this  disconnected 
and  discordant  affix  from  each,  they  would  both  begin 
with  the  advent  of  John  the  Baptist,  just  as  Mark  and 
John  does.  These  are  certainly  very  significant  facts 
in  determining  the  character  and  value  of  these  discon- 
nected addenda. 

If  the  fourth  Gospel  should  be  correctly  attributed  to 
the  apostle  John,  it  is  not  rationally  conceivable  that 
he  could  have  been  ignorant  of  such  momentous  facts,  if 
they  had  ever  existed  ;  nor  that  he  could,  knowing  them 
to  have  existed,  written  such  a  Gospel  without  reciting 
or  referring  to  them,  nor  that  he  could  have  been  con- 
versant with  the  accounts  in  Matthew  and  Luke  without 
attempting  to  explain  and  reconcile  their  manifest  con- 
flicts and  inconsistencies,  or  to  redeem  the  life  of  his 
Master  from  such  error  and  uncertainty,  by  a  true 
statement  of  the  facts.  He  had  been  the  constant  fol- 
lower and  the  bosom  friend  and  pet  of  his  Master  up  to 
his  crucifixion,  and  had  there  accepted  from  him  the  care 
and  custodianship  of  his  mother — that  mother  who  of  all 
persons  living  or  dead  knew  most  and  best  about  the 
paternity,  birth  and  infancy  of  her  son.  That  John 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       22/ 

could  have  maintained  these  life-long  family  relations 
with  a  mother  and  son  of  such  wonderful  destiny  and 
miraculous  antecedents  and  still  have  remained  ignorant 
of  those  astounding  occurrences  connected  with  the 
"Nativity,"  is  a  supposition  at  war  with  all  human 
reason  and  experience.  That  he  could  have  written  his 
Alexandrian  conception  of  the  "  Logos  "  in  the  obscure 
and  sententious  manner  he  has  done  in  his  opening, 
without  ever  referring  to  such  marvellous  exemplifica- 
tions and  proofs,  is  equally  inconceivable.  If  he  had 
ever  heard  of  these  after-rumors  he  treated  them  as 
Paul  did  these  same  "idle  genealogies,"  that  is,  took 
"  no  heed  "  of  them. 

Our  present  accounts  of  the  ancestry,  conception, 
birth  and  infancy  of  Jesus  seems  to  have  been  wholly 
distinct  and  unrelated  attempts,  most  probably  by  subse- 
quent interpolators,  to  mythically  realize,  in  the  infant 
Jesus,  the  popular  conception  of  a  divine  birth  (such  as 
we  have  seen  to  have  been  assigned  to  Plato),  as  well  as 
the  Messianic  dreams  of  the  old  Jewish  Poets  and 
Prophets.  When  we  analyze  and  compare  these  ac- 
counts, and  note  the  wholly  different  stand-points  of 
their  authors,  the  difference  in  their  aims  and  ideals,  the 
conflicts,  and  the  total  dissimilarity  between  the  inci- 
dents they  relate,  the  different  prophecies  they  rely 
upon,  and  the  total  difference  in  the  supernatural 
machinery  and  methods  which  they  summon  to  their  aid, 
we  can  scarcely  fail  to  perceive  th§  rnythic  and  unreliable 
character  of  both  these  accounts. 

The  writer  or  inventor-  of  the  account  in  the  first 


228  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

Gospel  manifestly  wrote  it  from  a  Jewish  stand-point, 
and  mainly  to  convince  Jews  that  Jesus  was  their  proph- 
esied Messiah  and  had  fulfilled  the  Messianic  prophecies. 
So  thoroughly  is  the  writer  absorbed  with  picturing  this 
prophetic  fulfilment,  that  a  real  history  is  never  thought 
of  or  imitated ;  and  the  whole  matter  is  made  to  consist 
of  dry  assertions  of  certain  facts  and  of  certain  fragments 
from  the  Old  Testament  scriptures  and  of  their  assumed 
relations  to  each  other  : — leaving  the  animus  and  motive 
of  his  plastic  labors  undisguisedly  conspicuous.  We  are 
made  to  perceive,  at  every  step,  not  only  that  the  meagre 
narrative  is  but  an  attempted  reflex  of  supposed  scrip- 
tural types  and  prophecies,  but  he  assures  us  that  the 
very  facts  themselves  existed  to  fulfil  the  prophecies — 
that  "  all  this  was  done  that  it  might  be  fulfilled  which 
was  spoken  of  the  Lord  by  the  prophet,"  etc.  Thus 
making  the  Lord  set  him  the  example  of  subordinating 
the  facts  of  nature  to  Jewish  prophecy.  This  is  the  key- 
note and  secret  of  the  whole  affair.  He  takes  certain 
scraps  of  supposed  Scripture  as  his  points  d'appui,  and 
boldly  asserts  some  assumed  fulfilment  of  them  ; — play- 
ing, while  doing  so,  most'  childish  tricks  with  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  still  more  childish  ones  in  his  fulfilments  of 
them. 

Naturally,  the  first  of  his  efforts  to  meet  Jewish  re- 
quirements, was  to  show  that  Jesus  was  the  "  Son  of 
David  "  or  heir  to  their  royal  house  ; — since  he  was,  of 
course,  limited  to  those  popular  notions  of  the  Christ 
which  did  not  necessarily  imply  his  earthly  triumph.  To 
satisfy  this  prophecy,  he  introduces  a  genealogy  of  Jesus 
— or  rather  of  Joseph,  without  indicating  when,  where,  or 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       22Q 

from  whom  he  obtained  it,  or  where  or  how  its  existence 
or  reality  could  be  ascertained  or  verified.  It  consists  of 
the  bare  assertion  of  an  anonymous  work  by  an  interested 
author.  So  imbued  was  he,  also,  with  the  mystical 
nature  of  his  work  and  with  the  appropriateness  of 
giving  it  mystical  surroundings,  that  he  seizes  upon  the 
old  fetlchistic  notion  of  the  magical  potency  and  signifi- 
cance of  certain  numbers — {a  notion  still  common  in  his 
day)  and  endeavors  to  cVeate  the  idea  of  a  pre-arranged 
and  divinely  ordered  harmony  resulting  in  a  numerical 
rhythm  in  the  reproductive  energies  of  all  the  ancestors 
of  Joseph  from  Abraham  and  Sarah  on  down  through 
over  twenty-five  generations  !  He  takes  special  care  to 
divide  this  long  chain  of  descent  into  three  parts  of  equal 
numbers  : — namely  :  from  Abraham  to  David, — fourteen 
generations :  from  David  to  the  Babylonish  captivity, — 
fourteen  generations  :  and  from  "  the  captivity  "  down 
to  Jesus, — fourteen  generations.  Thus  taking  the  mystic 
number,  three,  for  his  rhythmical  periods,  and  double  the 
mystic  and  sacred  number,  seven,  for  the  individuals  in 
each.  So  that  the  whole  number  is  attained  by  multi- 
plying the  sacred  number  "  three,"  by  a  multiple  of  the 
sacred  number  "seven."  Such^  habits  were  common 
among  ancient  writers,  and  while  this  custom  may  ex- 
plain and  apologize  for  the  instance  before  us,  it  must 
also  stamp  it  with  the  general  character  and  credit  of 
such  ancient  writings,  and  will  speak  "  volumes  "  to  the 
intelligent  modern  mind  as  to  the  origin  and  value  of  the 
work. 

But,  what  is  still  more  conclusive  of  the  forced,  in- 
considerate and  unreliable  character  of  this  mystically 


23O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

arranged  genealogy,  is  the  fact  that,  if  we  take  its  own 
numbers  and  list  of  names,  we  must  include  both  Abra- 
ham and  David,  the  first  and  last  names  in  the  first  list, 
in  order  to  make  the  required  fourteen  persons  ;  and  so 
we  must  include  both  Solomon  and  Jeconiah  to  get  the 
required  number  in  the  second  period  or  list ;  while  even 
by  counting  both  this  same  Jeconiah  and  Jesus  in  the 
third  period,  we  fail  to  get  our  mystical  number — obtain- 
ing only  thirteen.  But  the  indifference  to  facts,  which 
inspired  this  rhythm  of  mystical  numbers,  will  readily 
account  for  such  minor  carelessness  and  inaccuracy. 

Both  St.  Jerome  and  Strauss  concur  in  charging 
the  compiler  of  this  genealogy  with  having  designedly 
skipped  three  names  in  the  Old  Testament  genealogies 
in  order  to  get  his  mystical  number  of  double-seven  ; 
and  Strauss  fully  exhibits  the  facts  and  substatiates  his 
charge,  in  his  Life  of  Jesus. 


Let  us  now  recall  some  of  the  differences  between 
the  two  accounts  under  consideration.  Luke,  who  had 
not  hit  upon  this  happy  thought  of  a  mystical  numerical 
rhythm,  makes  the  number  of  generations  from  David  to 
Joseph  forty-one :  while  Matthew  covers  the  same  ground 
with  only  twenty-six.  To  any  fair  and  free  mind,  it  is 
manifest,  at  once,  that  this  enormous  difference  cannot 
be  reconciled  with  the  reliability  of  the  authors  of  the 
differing  genealogies.  The  only  chance  of  reconciliation 
would  be  in  supposing  them  to  be  tracing  a  descent 
through  a  different  line  of  ancestors ;  and  yet,  the 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       23! 

existence  of  such  an  enormous  difference  in  any  two 
lines  of  ancestry  during  the  same  period  and  among  the 
same  people  is  most  incredible, — even  if  we  had  any  evi- 
dence that  the  lines  attempted  to  be  traced  were  dif- 
ferent. 

But  this  is  by  no  means  the  most  striking  difference. 
The  object  of  these  genealogies  is  the  same, — namely, 
the  actual  physical  descent  of  Jesus  from  David,  in  plain 
fulfilment  of  the  Jewish  prophecies.  Had  there  been, 
therefore,  any  real  genealogical  record  of  an  actual 
descent  of  Joseph  the  carpenter  from  King  David,  the 
Gospel  copies  from  it  would  have  agreed  with  each  other 
in  all  corresponding  statements ;  and,  were  they  divinely 
guided,  would  have  agreed  throughout.  But,  how  stand 
the  facts  in  the  record  ?  In  the  two  long  lines  of 
alleged  ancestors  in  question,  with  the  exception  of  two 
conspicuous  persons,  all  of  the  names  are  different! 
Commence  at  which  end  of  the  series  you  choose,  and 
you  will  at  once  meet  conflicting  statements,  and  find 
yourself  following  two  lists  of  ancestors  differing  both  in 
number  and  persons.  Both  purport  to  give  the  genealogy 
of  Joseph  the  carpenter,  one  in  an  ascending,  and  the 
other  in  a  descending,  form.  Matthew  tells  us  that 
Joseph's  father  was  Jacob  :  Luke  tells  us  that  it  was  Eli. 
Matthew  says  that  Joseph  descended  from  David  through 
his  son  Solomon  :  Luke  tells  us  that  it  was  through  his 
son  Nathan.  The  two  series  of  names  only  twice  unite, 
— once  in  Salathiel,  and  again  in  Zerubbabel.  And,  even 
here  they  have  manifestly  only  casually  stumbled  into 
each  other's  embrace  :  since  they  have  no  sooner  touched 
than  they  recoil  and  sever  again  ;  differing  as  to  who 


232  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

was  the  father  of  Salathiel,  and  as  to  the  son  of  Ze- 
rubbabel.     A  singular  divine  inspiration,  truly  ! 

All  attempts  to  reconcile  these  conflicting  genealogies 
have  proved  as  signal  failures  as  they  are  themselves. 
Nothing  can  reconcile  them.  It  appears  that,  even  dur- 
ing the  life  of  St.  Paul,  the  churches  or  church  members 
were  wrangling  about  genealogies,  and  Paul  expressly 
warns  them  to  pay  no  heed  to  those  long  genealogies, — 
coupling  them  with  fables — (i  Tim.  i.  4). 


But  why  this  effort  to  force  such  a  worthless  pre- 
tence of  descent  and  heirship.  from  David  as  either  of 
these  would  be,  even  if  true  ?  They  both  trace  the 
descent  through  Joseph  ;  and  surely  it  could  be  of  no 
significance  or  value  to  Jesus  to  trace  the  descent  of 
Joseph  from  David  or  anybody  else,  since  such  a  descent 
could  not  possibly  transmit  either  the  blood  or  title 
of  David  to  Jesus,  if  the  Christian  doctrine  be  true. 
For  it  is  their  fundamental  doctrine,  put  forth  in  this 
very  first  account  by  Matthew,  and  found  side  by  side 
with  the  genealogy,  that  Jesus  was,  not  only  the  Son  of 
God  begotten  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  but  the  possibility  of 
his  being  the  son  of  Joseph  is  specially  excluded  by  the 
announcement  that  his  mother  was  yet  a  virgin  when  he 
was  born, — never  having  had  matrimonial  association 
with  Joseph, — certainly  not  until  after  the  birth  of  Jesus; 
This  state  of  facts  would,  if  true,  give  Jesus  no  possible 
claim  to  either  blood-relationship  or  heirship  through 
Joseph.  And  yet,  to  meet  Jewish  prophecy  and  expecta- 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       233 

tions,  he  must  have  been  a  son  of  David  according  to 
the  flesh.  Paul  says  he  was  "  made  of  the  seed  of 
David  according  to  the  flesh " — (Rom.  i.  3).  And 
singularly  enough,  after  Jesus'  own  clear  renunciation  of 
this  claim,  the  last  chapter  of  Revelations,  said  to  have 
been  written  by  the  "  beloved  disciple  "  who  was  himself 
present  at  this  renunciation,  makes  the  deified  Jesus  say  of 
himself — "  I  am  the  root  and  offspring  of  David."  Even 
if  either  of  these  genealogies  were  true,  therefore,  it 
would  not  even  tend  to  establish  any  descent  of  Jesus 
from  David,  or  any  such  relationship  as  the  scriptures 
contemplated  and  the  prophecies  demanded.  Mr.  Beecher 
very  correctly  remarks  that,  "  since  Joseph  was  not  his 
father,  it  could  only  be  through  his  mother  that  he  could 
trace  his  lineage  to  David."  Having  but  this  one  human 
parent,  he  could  only  be  related  to  humanity  through 
her.  And  yet,  it  is  nowhere  pretended  or  hinted  that 
Mary  was  a  descendant  of  David  ; — the  only  efforts  to 
establish  his  descent  being  these  two  lame  and  conflict- 
ing attempts  to  establish  it  through  a  man  who  was  in 
nowise  related  by  blood  to  himself ! 

The  character  attempted  to  be  set  up  for  Jesus  after 
his  resurrection  was,  in  fact,  double  and  incompatible. 
If  he  was  directly  begotten  by  God  without  male  human 
agency,  then  he  could  not  have  the  relationship  to  David 
which  the  New  Testament  assigns  to  him.  To  make  it 
sure  that  he  was  the  Son  of  God,  they  had  carefully  and 
expressly  excluded  the  possibility  of  the  fathership  of 
Joseph  ;  but,  in  doing  so,  they  excluded  all  possibility 
of  his  descent  from  David  save  through  his  mother,  and 
rendered  his  alleged  descent  through  Joseph  utterly 
nugatory  and  meaningless. 


234  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

But  more  striking  evidences  of  the  mythic  character 
of  these  narratives  still  remain  to  be  noticed.  The  con- 
duct as  well  as  declarations  of  Jesus  himself  leave  no 
doubt  of  the  light  in  which  he  viewed  this  whole  subject 
of  a  descent  from  David.  During  his  entire  career  he 
never  once  put  forward  any  claim  to  a  relationship  with 
David,  nor  made  the  slightest  allusion  to  his  birth,  his 
early  life  or  his  family  relations  or  descent — save  to  pub- 
licly repudiate  his  relationship  to  even  his  mother  and 
brethren.  He  never  hints  or  acknowledges  the  necessity 
of  a  descent  from  David  to  the  establishment  of  his  Mes- 
siahship,  but  seems  to  exult  in  repudiating  all  ancestral 
relations  by  calling  himself  the  "  Son  of  Man."  Nor  did 
he  leave  the  matter  to  the  violent  negative  presumption 
which  such  a  course  implied  when  thus  adopted  in  the 
presence  of  a  people  whose  first  requisite  for  a  Messiah 
was  a  descent  from  David.  On  the  contrary,  we  are  as- 
sured by  the  Gospels  themselves,  that  Jesus  expressly 
and  unanswerably  argued  to  the  Jews  that  they  were 
utterly  mistaken  in  supposing  that  the  Messiah  was  to 
be  a  son  of  David  at  all,  according  to  the  Scriptures. 
He  utterly  silenced  them  upon  this  matter,  it  is  said,  by 
showing  them  from  their  own  scriptures,  not  only  that 
the  Christ  need  not  be  a  son  of  David,  but  that  he  could 
not  be,  consistently  with  the  divine  word.  By  referring 
to  the  22d  chapter  of  Matthew,  and  commencing  at  the 
41  st  verse,  we  shall  see,  that  Jesus  voluntarily  intro- 
duced the  subject  and  challenged  the  Jews  as  to  their 
erroneous  notions  about  the  matter.  The  scene  is  de- 
scribed in  the  following  language  :  "  While  the  Pharisees 
were  gathered  together  Jesus  asked  them,  saying,  What 
think  ye  of  Christ  ?  Whose  son  is  he  ?  They  say  unto 


EXAMPLES    OF   THE   UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.      235 

him  the  son  of  David.  He  saith  unto  them,  how  then 
doth  David  in  spirit  call  him  Lord,  saying,  the  Lord 
said  unto  my  Lord  sit  thou  on  my  right  hand,  till  I 
make  thine  enemies  thy  footstool  ?  If  David  called 
him  Lord,  how  is  he  his  son  ?  And  no  man  was  able  to 
answer  him  a  word,  neither  durst  any  man  from  that 
day  forth  ask  him  any  question."  Now,  taking  this 
Gospel  account  of  this  voluntary  challenge  of  the  Jews 
as  to  their  well-known  belief  as  to  the  descent  of  the 
Christ  from  David  and  his  confessedly  unanswerable 
overthrow  of  that  belief  from  the  Scriptures  them- 
selves, Is  it  not  just  a  little  strange  to  find  future 
Christians  still  trying  to  prove  that  he  was  the  Christ 
by  showing  that  he  was  a  son  or  descendant  of  David 
through  a  man  who  was  not  his  own  father  or  ancestor, 
when  Jesus  himself  had  thus  stoutly  contended  and  un- 
answerably proved  that  the  Christ  could  not  be  a  son  of 
David  ! 

Besides  this  express  and  public  exposition  of  his 
views  to  the  assembled  Pharisees, 'Jesus,  by  his  whole 
language  and  conduct,  showed  his  utter  indifference  to 
family  relations  and  pretensions,  and  was  entirely  reti- 
cent as  to  his  birth,  birth-place  and  parentage  : — never 
speaking  of,  or  visiting  Bethlehem, — although  often 
within  an  hour's  walk  of  it,  never  speaking  of  Joseph  at 
all,  and  never  even  speaking  to  Mary  as  his  "  mother," 
but  addressing  her  by  her  broadest  designation — of 
"  woman."  If  ever  a  man  utterly  despised  the  preten- 
sions of  birth  and  fortune,  that  man  was  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth. He  yearned  for  success,  even  to  the  point  of 
weeping  for  his  failure  to  win  Jerusalem  to  his  cause, 
but  still,  they  must  be  won,  if  at  all,  in  his  own  way  and 


236  JESUS    AND   RELIGION. 

for  his  own  purposes  and  ideals.  He  knew  that  the 
Jews  expected  their  Messiah  to  be  born  at  Bethlehem 
and  of  the  House  of  David,  and  had  he  have  possessed 
those  popular  requisites,  it  would  have  been  his  highest 
duty  and  his  first  care  to  establish  that  fact;  but  it  was 
as  impossible  for  him  to  make  good  such  royal  preten- 
sions as  it  was  humiliating  to  attempt  it.  There  was 
but  one  alternative  left :  he  boldly  challenged  the  popu- 
lar construction  of  scripture  and  contended  that  the 
Christ  could  not  be  a  son  of  David.  So  stubbornly  did 
he  ignore  all  claims  from  birth  that,  when  charged  by 
his  opponents,  to  his  face,  with  being  a  Samaritan  and 
"  possessed  of  a  devil,"  he  only  indignantly  answered 
the  charge  of  being  "  possessed,"  without  noticing  that 
most  damning  and  fatal  charge  of  being  a  Samaritan, 
well  knowing  the  necessary  implication  from  his  silence 
under  an  adverse  charge.  But,  What  could  he  do  ?  He 
could  not,  and  dared  not,  claim  to  have  the  birth  they 
required,  and,  Would  he  make  the  matter  any  better  by 
claiming  his  descent  from  the  humble  carpenter  of  "  de- 
spised Nazareth  ? "  Were  it  not  wiser  to  pass  it  by  in 
silence,  and,  if  possible,  let  this  matter  sleep  ? 

Thus,  under  the  highest  and  most  pressing  induce- 
ments and  demands,  Jesus,  both  by  his  express  declara- 
tions and  his  significant  silence  as  well  as  by  the  whole 
tenor  and  implications  of  his  conduct,  not  only  repudi- 
ated all  claim  to  a  birth  at  Bethlehem  or  a  descent  from 
David,  but  boldly  denied  the  necessity  of  such  descent 
to  his  Messianic  claims.  How  is  it  then,  we  repeat,  that 
we  find  the  future  disciples  of  Jesus,  long  after  he  had 
passed  away,  making  up  all  manner  of  impossible  and 
contradictory  genealogies  to  prove,  not  only  that  Jesus 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC. 

was  what  he  himself  had  so  thoroughly  repudiated  and 
publicly  denounced  as  non-Messianic, — but  to  prove  his 
descent  from  David  through  Joseph, — a  fact  which  they 
themselves  had  precluded  by  expressly  excluding  Joseph 
from  all  possible  connection  with  his  paternity  or  de- 
scent ?  Dare  we  pause  as  to  which  of  the  two  we  will 
believe,  under  all  these  circumstances, — Jesus,  or  the 
unknown  writers  of  these  unverified,  conflicting  and  use- 
less genealogies  of  Joseph  the  carpenter  ?  If  these  Gos- 
pel genealogies  are  right  in  saying  that  Jesus  descended 
—  (as  St.  Paul  said — "  according  to  the  flesh  ")  from 
David  through  Joseph,  then  Joseph  was  his  father 
through  the  flesh,  and  he  was  not  the  Son  of  God.  If 
Joseph  was  not  his  father,  which  they  positively  assert, 
then  he  was  not  a  descendant  of  David,  even  if  they  had 
proved  Joseph  to  have  been  such.  If,  however,  we  over- 
ride all  absurdities  and  impossibilities,  waive  all  errors 
and  contradictions,  and  concede  to  them  that  Jesus  was 
a  son  of  David,  then,  according  to  the  voluntary  and 
positive  showing  of  Jesus  himself,  he  could  not  be  the 
Christ.  Such  is  the  strange  jumble  in  which  these 
"  infallible  records  "  have  left  these  fundamental  tenets 
of  Christianity  !  Are  not  the  impressions  of  the  myth- 
moulds  on  these  genealogies  and  stories  standing  out 
everywhere  in  bold  relief  ? 


The  next  prophecy  which  was  to  be  coined  into  fact 
is  quoted  in  the  Gospel  as  follows  :  "  A  virgin  shall  be 
with  child  and  shall  bring  forth  a  son,  and  they  shall  call 


238  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

his  name  Emmanuel,  which  being  interpreted  is  God 
with  us"  We  refer  again  to  this  prophecy  that  we  may 
review  consecutively  all  the  prophecies  alleged  to  have 
been  fulfilled  by  Jesus  in  these  Gospel  accounts  of  the 
Nativity.  In  view  of  this  prophecy,  according  to  the 
first  Gospel,  it  was  deemed  necessary  that  Mary  should 
have  no  intercourse  with  her  husband  until  after  the 
birth  of  Jesus ;  and  that,  in  imitation  of  other  extraordi- 
nary Jewish  persons  as  well  as  of  the  original  subject  of 
the  prophecy,  the  child  should  be  pre-named  by  an  anti- 
natal  angelic  announcement.  This  effort  of  the  Evan- 
gelist presents  two  singular  and  significant  features.  In 
the  first  place  there  is  not  the  slightest  warrant,  or  even 
shadow  of  apology,  for  applying  this  prophecy  or  sign, 
in  Isaiah,  to  the  Messiah.  The  prophet  gives  not  the 
slightest  intimation  or  reason  to  believe  that  he  either 
directly  or  typically  referred  to  the  Christ.  It  is  appar- 
ent, indeed,  that  no  such  thought  ever  occurred  to  him. 
The  whole  prophecy  grew  out  of,  and  began  and  ended 
with,  the  embroilment  of  King  Ahaz  with  his  enemies — 
the  kings  of  Israel  and  Syria.  Ahaz  was  alarmed  at  his 
situation,  and  inclined  to  make  an  alliance  with  the  As- 
syrians, The  prophet  opposed  this  view,  and  endeav- 
ored to  convince  Ahaz  that  his  enemies  would  speedily 
come  to  grief.  To  assure  Ahaz  of  this  he  urged  him  to 
ask  for  a  sign.  Ahaz  having  declined  to  do  this,  the 
prophet  insisted  upon  having  this  test  of  his  own  views, 
and  named  the  sign  himself — namely  :  that  a  virgin 
should  conceive  and  bear  a  son  whose  name  should  be 
Emmanuel.  The  Prophet  then  adds  :  "  Butter  and 
honey  shall  he  eat,  that  he  may  know  to  refuse  the  evil 
and  choose  the  good.  For  before  the  child  shall  know 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       239 

to  refuse  the  evil  and  choose  the  good,  the  land  thou 
abhorrest  shall  be  forsaken  of  both  her  Kings."  The 
prophecy  was  simply  given  as  a  sign  to  encourage  Ahaz, 
and  was  to  be  fulfilled  almost  immediately.  Can  any 
mortal  comprehend  how  this  was  ever  supposed  to  have 
any  connection  with  the  Christ.  The  sign  had  been 
given,  and  the  little  Emmanuel  had  come  and  eaten  his 
"  butter  and  honey  "  to  brighten  him  up  on  questions  of 
good  and  evil,  and  Ahaz  and  his  enemies  had  slumbered 
with  their  fathers,  and  the  whole  prophecy  and  its  ful- 
filment fully  over  and  done  with,  many  centuries  be- 
fore : — What  further  significance  could  it  have  ?  By 
what  right  or  reason  was  it  supposed  to  have  any  refer- 
ence to  the  Messiah,  any  more  than  any  other  future 
prince  or  person  ?  Not  the  slightest  reason  or  apology 
for  such  a  reference  can  be  shown,  or  was  attempted  to 
be  shown. 

In  the  second  place,  the  prophecy  was  as  lamely 
fulfilled,  as  it  was  lamely  applied  by  the  Evangelist.  He 
not  only  as  clearly  forces  the  "sign  "  upon  us  as  did  the 
prophet  upon  Ahaz,  but  he  utterly  fails  to  rival  the 
prophet  in  the  success  of  his  alleged  fulfilment.  His 
reasoning  is  by  no  means  a  model  of  perspicuity.  He 
conceived  that,  because  the  child  given  as  a  sign  to 
Ahaz  was  to  be  called  Emmanuel, — which  means  one 
certain  thing,  and  was  to  thereby  fulfil  the  prophecy, 
therefore  the  child  of  Mary  fulfilled  the  same  prophecy 
by  being  called  Jesus, — a  name  wholly  different  and  of 
wholly  different  signification  from  that  used  in  the 
prophecy!  This  is  gravely  said  to  be  fulfilling  the 
prophecy,  but  just^ww  it  fulfils  it,  or  what  it  had  to  do 
with  the  prophecy,  is  nowhere  made  apparent.  As  to 


24O  JESUS   AND   RELIGION. 

the  virginity  of  the  mothers  of  the  little  "butter  and 
honey  "  eater  and  his  asserted  antitype,  like  in  all  other 
such  cases,  it  is  a  matter  to  be  smiled  at.  What  would 
such  stories  and  such  attempts  at  prophetic  fulfilments 
be  worth  in  our  day  ?  and,  are  they  any  better  for  being 
old  ?  As  long  as  Jesus  and  his  mother  personally  figure 
before  us  we  have  no  intimation  of  the  virginity  of  his 
mother  or  of  her  marvellous  association  with  the  Holy 
Ghost,  either  by  word  or  conduct.  These  stories  all 
grew  up  after  the  Resurrection, 


The  next  prophecy  which  our  author  proposes  to 
fulfil,  is  that  of  Balaam  concerning  the  "  star "  which 
should  arise  out  of  Jacob.  The  attempt  to  apply  this 
prophecy  to  the  Messiah,  much  more  to  Jesus,  was,  if 
possible,  more  gratuitous  and  unwarranted  than  this 
appropriation  of  the  Emmanuel-prophecy.  Let  any  free 
mind  read  the  22d,  23d  and  24th  chapters  of  Numbers 
and  ask  itself  whether,  if  it  were  not  aware  that  it  had 
been  used  in  connection  with  the  Christ,  it  would  have 
ever  dreamed  of  giving  it  such  an  application.  None  can 
fail  to  perceive  that  the  "  star "  was  intended  to  repre- 
sent some  descendant  of  Jacob  whom  the  prophet  dis- 
tinguished as  a  star — that  is,  in  vulgar  parlance,  a  "star 
person,"  and  not  a  heavenly  orb  or  star.  The  prophecy 
plainly  and  expressly  refers  to  a  future  powerful  and 
successful  Ruler  of  the  Israelites,  who  should  triumph 
over  Moab  and  the  petty  states  around  Judea.  The 
Reader  will  find  the  military  exploits  of  this  prophesied 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       24! 

"Star"  very  fully  detailed  in  Numbers  xxiv.  17-24. 
Can  any  such  achievements  as  are  there  predicted 
of  the  "Star"  find  any  analogy  in  those  of  Jesus  ?  Or 
is  there  any  analogy  between  that  "  star "  or  person 
and  the  wandering  "star"  in  the  Heavens,  which  is 
claimed  to  have  piloted  the  "  three  wise  men  from  the 
East"  to  the  cradle  of  Jesus  ?  Can  even  a  pretence  be 
shown  for  using  the  star  of  the  prophecy  as  pointing  to  or 
prefiguring  a  heavenly  body  or  light  ?  How  could  such 
a  star  arise  out  of  Jacob  ? 

The  nature  of  Matthew's  star  has  vainly  exhausted 
speculation.  It  has  been  supposed  to  have  been  a  con- 
junction of  planets,  a  comet,  a  meteor,  and  whatever  else 
cojLild  be  suggested  by  despairing  ingenuity.  This  diffi- 
culty arises,  not  from  the  prophecy,  but  from  the  Evan- 
gelist's, or  his  interpolater's,  construction  and  fulfilment 
of  it.  Balaam  is  made  to  predict,  in  the  figurative 
language  of  the  East,  the  coming  of  an  able  and  power- 
ful person  among  the  descendants  of  Jacob,  and  the 
writer  of  the  account  in  Matthew  probably  had  heard  of 
this*  "star"  of  prophecy,  and  without  ever  having  ex- 
amined its  true  meaning,  assumed  it  to  be  literally  one 
of  the  heavenly  luminaries  and  to  be  connected  with  the 
Christ.  His  utter  ignorance  of  the  real  nature  and 
distance  of  the  heavenly  bodies  permitted  him  to  assign 
to  this  star  offices  and  capabilities  which  are  now  known 
to  be  impossible  to  them.  As  well  assert  that  our  Earth 
could  go  before  a  man  and  point  out  a  hen's  nest  on  the 
planet  Jupiter,  as  to  say  that  one  of  the  planetary  worlds 
or  stars  could  point  out  the  road  to,  and  the  dwelling 
house  of,  the  infant  Jesus.  Supposing  the  stars  to  be 

16 


242  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

merely  small  lights  in  the  blue  vault  just  overhead — 
(instead  of  vast  worlds  many  millions  of  miles  distant,) 
he  tells  us  that  the  star  of  Jesus  guided  the  "Wise 
Men"  to  Bethlehem  and  then  came  and  "stood  over" 
where  the  young  child  was,  to  point  out  his  exact  local- 
ity— a  fact  that  might  have  been  performed  by  a  divinely 
inspired  Jack-o'-lantern,  but  surely  not  by  any  heavenly 
body. 

Mr.  Beecher,  conceding  the  impossibility  of  its 
having  been  a  star,  planet  or  comet,  adopts  the  Jack-o'- 
lantern  theory,  and  suggests  the  possibility  of  a  special 
globe  of  light,  ordered  for  that  purpose  ;  and,  to  avoid 
the  inevitable  inference  that  Herod  and  other  people 
would  also  see  it,  he  supposes  the  eyes  of  the  "  Wise 
Men "  to  have  been  miraculously  "prepared  to  receive 
it."  Well,  this  is  clearly  not  at  all  what  the  Gospel 
means,  but  it  is  useless  to  quarrel  with  Mr.  Beecher  for 
suggesting  a  baby-solution  of  this  childish  affair,  where 
the  only  other  alternatives  are  impossible  ones.  He 
will  suffer  us,  however,  to  put  him  in  the  line  of  safe 
precedents,  by  suggesting  that,  instead  of  having  his 
men's  eyes  miraculously  opened,  he  should  have  had 
other  people's  eyes  "  holden, "  after  the  style  of  the 
disciples  who  met  Jesus  on  the  road  to  Emmaus.  But, 
really  and  seriously,  when  men,  so  clever  and  cultured 
as  Mr.  Beecher,  can  consent  to  accept  a  miracle  which 
is,  even  as  a  miracle,  so  palpably  absurd  and  so  alien  to 
the  prophecy,  by  forcing  such  a  construction  of  his  own 
upon  it, — Ought  we  to  wonder  at  the  credulity  and  con- 
structions of  the  ignorant  and  superstitious  men  whose 
writings  we  are  considering  ?  Does  Mr.  Beecher  also 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       243 

believe  that  Balaam  had  reference  to  a  ball  of  light  or 
some  miraculous  "  bull's-eye  lantern  "  when  he  spoke  of 
the  star  that  should  rise  out  of  Jacob  ?  Or  can  he  really 
believe  that  either  the  Gospel  or  the  "  wise  men  "  could 
mean  such  a  light  as  he  suggests,  when  these  "wise 
men "  are  made  to  come  from  the  East  and  say : 
"  Where  is  he  that  is  born  King  of  the  Jews  ?  for  we 
have  seen  his  star  in  the  East?" 


The  next  attempted  adaptation  in  our  narrative,  was 
an  effort  to  get  the  benefit  of  a  couple  of  supposed 
prophecies  and  a  scriptural  prototype.  We  are  told 
that  Herod  the  Great  being  alarmed  by  the  announce- 
ment of  the  "  wise  men  "  from  the  East  and  disappointed 
by  their  failure  to  return  by  Jerusalem  with  the  infor- 
mation he  desired  concerning  the  young  heir  of  David 
and  rival  for  his  own  throne,  ordered  all  the  infants 
under  two  years  of  age  in  and  around  Bethlehem  to  be 
slaughtered ;  but  that  Joseph,  being  warned  in  a  dream, 
escaped  with  the  mother  and  child  into  Egypt.  It 
would  not  do  for  this  new  redeemer  of  Israel  to  pass 
through  less  dangers  and  marvellous  escapes  on  •  account 
of  the  terror  his  very  existence  inspired  in  the  reigning 
monarch,  than  did  their  first  redeemer,  Moses.  By  all 
means  he  must  be  made  an  antitype  of  Moses,  who  had 
been  similarly  threatened,  and  as  marvellously  preserved 
from  a  like  destruction  of  infants  by  Pharaoh. 

One  of    the  supposed   prophecies    here  alleged   to 


244  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

have  been  fulfilled,  will  be  found  in  Jeremiah,  xxxi.  15, 
in  the  following  words :  "  A  voice  was  heard  in 
Ramah,  lamentation  and  bitter  weeping  :  Rachel  weep- 
ing for  her  children  because  they  were  not."  The  other 
is  a  partially  quoted  paragraph  in  the  first  verse  of  the 
eleventh  chapter  of  Hosea — "  Out  of  Egypt  have  I  called 
my  son.'*  These  are  not  less  astounding  attempts  to 
transform  mere  casual  statements  and  references  in  the 
Scriptures  into  prophecies,  nor  are  we  given  less 
astonishing  and  forced  fulfilments  of  them,  than  in  those 
already  considered.  The  facts  which  are  set  up  in  ful- 
filment of  these  Scriptures,  override  all  the  canons  of  be- 
lief. That  Herod  might  have  been  mentally  morbid  is  very 
possible,  but  it  is  certainly  true  that  his  sagacity  and 
conduct  had  won  for  him  the  appellation  of  Herod  the 
Great,  and  that,  up  to  the  last,  he  was  both  shrewd  and 
cunning.  It  is  quite  impossible  to  rationally  suppose 
him  capable  of  the  follies  thus  attributed  to  him,  even 
were  he  known  to  be  capable  of  such  barbarity.  Nor 
can  we  believe  that  Josephus,  who  enters  into  even  the 
royal  dreams  of  that  age,  could  have  been  either  ignorant 
or  silent  upon  such  an  event  as  this  "slaughter  of  the 
innocents  "  with  a  view  to  the  destruction  of  the  Christ 
of  the  Jews.  We  find  it  impossible  to  conceive  him 
overlooking  so  appalling  a  crime  and  one  committed  for 
the  purpose  of  destroying  the  long  cherished  and  last 
hope  of  himself  and  of  his  race.  It  would  have  needed 
no  such  wholesale  slaughter  to  have  aroused  the  Jews  in 
this  instance.  Had  there  really  been  such  a  public  and 
star-inspired  announcement  in  Jerusalem  of  the  birth  of 
the  Christ  by  the  "wise  men  of  the  East,"  the  bare 
annunciation  would  have  set  all  Judea  ablaze  in  twenty- 


EXAMPLES    OF   THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       245 

four  hours,  and  the  merest  threat  or  suspicion  of  ah 
attempt  to  destroy  that  one  infant,  would  have  maddened 
to  desperation  the  entire  race.  And  yet  we  are  to  be- 
lieve that  all  this  was  actually  done,  that  all  Jerusalem 
was  "  troubled  "  on  account  of  this  public  announcement 
of  the  Magi ;  that  all  the  children  under  two  years  of 
age  both  in  Bethlehem  and  throughout  "all  the  coasts 
thereof "  were  ruthlessly  butchered  in  order  to  destroy 
their  infant  Christ ;  and  that  all  this,  not  only  brought 
no  resistance — no  protest  even — from  the  Jews  or  even 
from  the  outraged  parents  of  Bethlehem  and  its  "coasts," 
but  that  the  whole  matter  passed  into  an  utter,  Lethean 
oblivion  with  the  dream  and  flight  of  Joseph !  Would 
such  an  announcement  of,  and  such  an  attempt  to 
destroy  their  Messiah  have  thus  passed  into  oblivion  ? 
Were  the  "  troubled  "  Jews  of  "  all  Jerusalem  "  either  the 
people,  or  in  the  temper  and  mood  to  submit  to  such 
outrages  ?  Would  Bethlehem  and  its  "  coasts "  have 
drawn  no  sword  in  defence  of  their  little  ones  ? 

Besides  all  this,  under  the  conditions  propounded 
Herod  could  not  have  acted  so  unnecessarily  brutal  or 
been  so  fatally  foolish.  With  his  knowledge  and  the  re- 
sources at  his  command — Where  was  the  need  for  such 
brutality  or  for  such  an  uncertain  and  dangerous  remedy 
and  one  taken,  as  it  appears,  without  ever  even  inquiring 
for,' or  seeking  the  child?  If  there  could  be  any  diffi- 
culty in  finding  such  a  child  in  the  adjacent  village  of 
Bethlehem,  why  not  have  followed  the  "star  ;"  or  were 
that  invisible  to  ordinary  mortals,  as  Mr.  Beecher  sug- 
gests, why  not  put  his  spies  on  the  track  of  the  "  wise 
men,"  and  had  them  watched  in  Bethlehem,  where  he 


246  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

knew  they  were  going  expressly  to  see  this  young 
Christ  ?  There  could  have  been  no  difficulty  in  follow- 
ing, or  in  afterwards  tracing  the  movements  of  these 
venerable,  star-gazing  strangers,  with  their  load  of  costly 
presents  for  the  Jewish  Christ,  especially  through  such 
a  small  village  as  Bethlehem  and  within  an  hour's  walk 
of  Jerusalem.  Would  the  wily  old  Idumean  Herod  have 
failed  to  perceive  this  simplest  and  plainest  method,  and 
have  trusted  wholly  to  the  men  who  had  come  to  worship 
this  divine  child  and  heir  to  Herod's  usurped  throne,  for 
information  which  they  were  sure  to,  and  did  refuse  to 
furnish  ?  Would  he,  after  their  failure  to  return,  have 
resorted  to  the  uncertain  and  brutal  remedy  asserted, 
without  an  effort  to  find  the  child  or  to  follow  the 
necessarily  slow  flight  of  the  "  holy  family "  even 
through  his  own  dominions  ?  But,  when  we  add,  from 
Luke's  description,  all  the  heavenly  glories,  and  signs 
that  marked  the  birth  and  pointed  out  the  place  of  the 
child,  the  proclaiming  it  "  abroad "  by  the  shepherds, 
the  open  and  public  dedication  of  the  child  to  God,  in  the 
temple,  under  the  very  beards  of  Herod  and  all  his 
officers,  his  recognition  as  Messiah  by  prophets  and 
priest  amid  the  general  rejoicings  in  the  temple  over  his 
advent,  and  his  public  annunciation  as  the  Christ  to  all 
those  that  "  looked  for  redemption  in  Jerusalem," — 
when  we  add  all  this,  we  say,  can  we  believe  that  Herod 
was  put  to  such  silly,  uncertain  and  brutal  straits  from 
his  inability  to  find  this  infant  ?  Do  they  not  assure  us 
that  he  was  proclaimed  openly  and  miraculously  in 
heaven  and  on  earth,  in  the  temple  and  city,  in  villages 
and  fields,  by  angels,  prophets,  priests  and  peasants? 
Was  ever  a  child  so  heralded  to  Herod  and  to  all  the 


EXAMPLES    OF   THE    UNHISTOR1C    AND    MYTHIC.       247 

people  as  was  this  one  ?  Was  he  not,  of  all  children,  the 
easiest  to  be  found  ?  Need  we  wonder,  when  we  read 
such  exhibitions  of  divine  congruity  and  consistency, 
that  this  same  inspired  author  was  the  very  first  to  dis- 
cover that  the  little  far-inland,  hill  village  of  Bethlehem 
was  a  seaport  town,  having  "  all  the  coasts  thereof  ? " 

As  to  the  supposed  prophecy  about  the  mourning  in 
Ramah  (Jer.  xxxi.  15),  it  may  be  safely  affirmed  that 
they  do  not  purport  to  be,  and  were  never  intended  to 
be,  a  prophecy  at  all.  The  paragraph  in  question  is  a 
mere  reference  to  a  fact  which  had  already  happened — 
happened  when  the  Assyrians  had  destroyed  or  made 
captive  the  people  of  Ramah.  That  it  furnishes  the  re- 
motest hint  that  it  refers,  in  any  manner,  to  the  Christ  is 
simply  not  true.  The  prophet  had  been  discoursing, 
hopefully,  of  the  restoration  of  Israel  from  their  Baby- 
lonish captivity,  and,  after  mentioning  the  past  fact  of 
the  lamentations  in  Ramah  at  the  time  of  their  subjuga- 
tion, by  way  of  prelude,  he  then  commands  them  (v.  16 
and  17),  in  the  name  of  God,  to  "refrain  thy  (their) 
voice  from  weeping  and  thine  eyes  from  tears,  for  thy 
work  shall  be  rewarded,  saith  the  Lord,  and  they  shall 
come  again  from  the  land  of  the  enemy.  And  there  is 
hope  in  thine  end,  saith  the  Lord,  that  thy  children  shall 
come  again  to  their  own  border"  The  losses  and  lamen- 
tations in  Ramah  are  here  alluded  to  as  past  facts  :  the 
prophetic  part  concerns  the  return  of  the  Israelites  from 
Babylon  to  Judea, — and  that  alone.  How  this  recital  of 
the  past  woes  of  Ramah  could  be  construed  to  predict 
the  asserted  woes  of  Bethlehem  happening  many  centuries 
afterwards,  is  quite  beyond  all  rational  comprehension. 


JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

Another  scriptural  quotation  seems  to  have  lingered 
in  the  mind  of  the  author,  concerning  "  my  son,"  which 
impressed  him  as  available.  The  sentence  was  imper- 
fectly and  only  partially  remembered,  and  is  quoted  thus  : 
— "  Out  of  Egypt  have  I  called  my  son."  The  words 
thus  imperfectly  remembered  are  from  Hosea — (xi.  i 
and  are  as  follows : — "  When  Israel  was  a  child,  then 
I  loved  him,  and  called  my  son  out  of  Egypt."  When 
the  text  is  no  longer  mutilated,  its  meaning  is  no 
longer  pervertible.  The  words  were  not  prophetic,  nor 
do  they,  or  their  connection,  hint  of  a  prophetic  sig- 
nificance, or  permit  such  a  construction.  Hosea  was 
lecturing  the  Jews  for  ingratitude  to  Jehovah,  after  all 
he  had  done  for  them,  and  commences  the  recital  of  his 
favors  to  them  by  saying  that,  from  the  first,  when  Israel 
was  a  child,  as  it  were,  God  loved  him,  and  had  brought 
him — (his  son  Israel) — out  of  Egypt.  It  was  simply  a 
reminder  of  the  fact  that  God  had  long  ago  brought  the 
Israelites  out  of  Egypt, — and  nothing  more  ;  and,  when 
read  entire  and  in  its  proper  connection,  is  incapable  of 
misconstruction.  As  partially  and  imperfectly  remem- 
bered and  quoted  by  our  author,  it  was  seized  upon  as~  a 
Messianic  prophecy  :  it  was  then  no  longer  "  my  son  " 
Israel  that  had  come  out  of  Egypt,  but  "  my  son  " — the 
Christ, — that  should  come  out  of  Egypt !  Can  any  one 
inform  us  by  what  right  men  thus  garble  and  misquote, 
and  then  wholly  pervert  the  palpable  meaning  of  Scrip- 
ture ?  Is  it  not  clear  that  any  statement  of  a  past  fact 
about  any  body,  in  the  Scriptures,  can  with  equal  pro- 
priety be  asserted  to  be  prophecy  or  typification  of  the 
Christ.  With  equal  propriety  and  plausibility  they  might 
have  said  that,  according  to  Scripture,  Adam  came  out 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       249 

of  the  garden  'of  Eden,  and  that,  to  fulfil  this  Scripture, 
the  Christ  must  come  out  of  Eden  also. 

Having  so  lucidly  and  legitimately  shown  that  the 
Christ  was  to  be  brought  out  of   Egypt,  the  question 
naturally  arose  as  to  how   he  could  be  gotten  out,  until 
he  had  been  gotten  in.     It  was  deemed  necessary  to  have 
him  born  in  Bethlehem,  and  it  was  no  easy  matter  to 
suggest  a  plausible  reason  for  a  poor  man,  in  those  days, 
moving  with  his  wife  and  infant  child  from  Judea  to 
Egypt  and  then  back  again  ;  and,  if  the  idea  of  having 
him  scared  into  a  temporary  flight  by  a  dream  of  danger  to 
the  child  from  Herod's  jealousy  should  seem  far-fetched 
and   irrational,  we  can  make  allowances  for   the  diffi- 
culties of  the  situation  ;    and  when  we  find  that  Luke 
finds  no  need  for,  and  makes  no  mention  of,  the  "  star," 
of  the  "  wise  men,"  of  Herod's  slaughter  of  the  innocents, 
of  the  flight  into  Egypt,  or  of  bringing  "  my  son  "  out  of 
Egypt,  but  clearly  excludes  their  possibility  by  his  own 
conception  of  the   necessities    and   proprieties    of   the 
situation,  we  can  still  make  allowances,  considering  both 
the   source  and  purpose,  as  well  as  the  fact  that  the 
author  did  not  know  what  Luke  was  going  to  say  about 
the  matter.     Fortunately  the  troubles  on  this  point  go 
no  further,  since,  having  gotten  him  into  Egypt  he  could 
readily  be  brought  out  again  ;  and,  with  the  exception  of 
Joseph's  dreams  and  the  apocryphal  miracles  worked  by 
the  swaddling  clothes,  etc.,  of   Herod's  infant  rival,  that 
was  all  that  come  of  it.     The  whole  object  was  to  get 
him  in,  so  as  to  get  him  out.     But,  as  Matthew  assumes 
their  residence  to  have  been  Bethlehem  of  Judea,  it  was 
necessary  to  find  some  reason  for  their  having  gone  to 


JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

Nazareth  in  Galilee,  instead  of  back  to  Bethlehem.     To 
accomplish  this,  a  new  "  scare  "  and  a  new  "  dream  "  are 
resorted  to.     At  the  return,  a  son  of   Herod  ruled  in 
Judea,  and  to  avoid  danger  from  him,  they  turned  aside 
and  moved  into  Galilee  ; — the  author  being  ignorant  of, 
or  overlooking,  the  fact  that  the  same  man  who  after- 
wards executed  John  the  Baptist,  then  ruled  in  Galilee 
and  was  also  a  son   of  Herod  and  a  contestant  with  his 
brother  for  the  throne  of  Judea:  forgetting,  also,  how 
utterly  ignorant  of,  and  indifferent  to,  the  pretensions  of 
Jesus,  were  the  family  of  Herod,  as  shown  by  the  whole 
course  of  the   examination,  and   of   the   contemptuous 
acquittal  of  Jesus  by  this  same  son  of  Herod  when  he  was 
sent  to  him  by  Pilate  upon  a  charge  of  having  actually 
and  publicly  proclaimed  himself  King  of  the  Jews.     This 
trial   by  Herod   Antipas   and  the  fact  that  Jesus'  chief 
exhibitions    and  pretensions   had  been  put   forward    in 
Herod's  own  province,  without  Herod's  molestation,  will 
give  us  some  idea  both  of  the  pretended  knowledge  and  of 
the  fears  of  old  Herod  and  his  sons  of  the  infant  Jesus, 
and  of  the  probability  of  the  "  slaughter  of  the  innocents," 
and  the  counter-fears  and  movements  of  the  dreaming 
Joseph. 


The  narrative  woven  to  fulfil  these  odd  and  disjointed 
scraps  of  alleged  Scripture,  lands  us  safe  in  Nazareth. 
But  we  should  fail  to  do  justice  to  the  creative  powers  of 
the  author  if  we  supposed  that  he  could  part  with  this 
masterpiece  without  a  final  and  triumphant  attempt  to  a 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       25! 

fulfilled  prophecy.  The  final  home  of  Jesus  must  surely 
have  had  some  scriptural  significance  which  would 
furnish  the  author  with  a  parting  Parthian  shot.  We  are 
accordingly  assured  that  Joseph,  with  Jesus  and  his 
mother,  came  and  dwelt  in  Nazareth,  that  it  might  be 
fulfilled  which  was  spoken  by  the  prophets — "  he  shall 
be  called  a  Nazarene."  Here  we  have,  certainly,  a  very 
apt  prophetic  ending  ;  but,  also,  unfortunately,  a  very 
characteristic  one.  Hitherto  our  author  had  contented 
himself  with  a  single  prophet  for  each  point,  and  with  mis- 
appropriating, misstating,  misconstruing  and  misfulfilling 
each  in  its  turn,  but,  in  this  final  climax  of  his  plastic 
labors,  he  attempts  to  aggregate  and  appropriate  the  pro- 
phetical authority  of  all  the  prophets,  at  a  single  dash, 
by  fulfilling  for  us  a  prediction  claimed  to  be  made  by 
the  "  prophets  "  generally.  This  reference  to  the  proph- 
ets generally  was  certainly  a  judicious  stroke,  seeing 
that  no  such  prophecy,  nor  even  the  word  "  Nazarene," 
is  mentioned  within  the  lids  of  the  Old  Testament ! 
This  aptly  closes  our  prophetic  assurances  of  the 
Messiahship  of  Jesus. 


Let  us  now  compare  the  aceounts  of  the  Nativity  as 
they  are  found  in  the  first  and  third  Gospels.  Ac- 
customed as  we  have  been  from  our  childhood  to  be  told 
that  these  stories  relate  to.  the  same  child,  and  to  regard 
both  accounts  as  the  infallible  "  word  of  God,"  we  never 
notice  their  pajpabje  and  radical  differences.  We  dare 


252  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

not  suffer  such  suggestions  to  enter  our  minds.  Yet 
did  we  once  dare  to  give  our  reason  the  freedom  of  its 
own  laws,  we  should  readily  discover  that,  had  all  the 
proper  names  been  left  in  blank,  the  identity  of  the  sub- 
jects of  the  two  narratives  could  never  have  been 
suspected.  Both  narratives  have  evidently  been  written 
by  men  without  mental  grasp  or  acumen,  or  even  the 
culture  of  their  times.  They  are  both  ignorant  men, 
writing  for  an  ignorant  sect.  Both  are  credulous  and 
superstitious ;  both  write  for  specific  readers  and 
specific  purposes  ;  and  both  are  equally  indifferent  to 
the  sacredness  of  history.  But  the  persons  they  severally 
intended  to  affect  as  well  as  the  moulds  and  habits  of 
their  own  minds  and  thoughts  are  clearly  different.  The 
writer  of  the  account  prefixed  to  the  first  Gospel  was 
evidently  writing  to  convince  those  who  looked  to  the 
Jewish  Scriptures  for  their  tests  of  the  Messiahship  of 
Jesus,  and  his  narrative  consists  of  a  loose  skeleton 
formed  of  the  alleged  fulfilments  of  disjointed  scraps  of 
misquoted  and  misapplied  Scripture  which  we  have  re- 
viewed, held  together  by  meagre  and  marvellous  shreds  of 
dreams  and  events  concocted  to  connect  the  incidents 
claimed  to  be  fulfilments  of  such  scraps  of  Scripture. 

The  account  in  the  third  Gospel,  on  the  contrary, 
would  seem  to  have  been  written  by  one  Gentile  to 
another,  to  satisfy  him  as  to  the  fact  that  Jesus  was  the 
divine  Saviour  of  the  World,  and  to  give  him  the  current 
and  most  popular  views  in  regard  to  him.  His  fancy, 
consequently,  has  a  different  and  freer  range  and  his 
mental  products  a  different  mould.  To  the  Jew,  Jesus 
was  nothing  unless  he  could  be  shown  to  be  the  Jewish 
Messiah  ;  while  by  the  Greek  and  Roman  he  was  toler- 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.        253 

ated  as  a  Jew  in  consideration  that  he  was  also  the 
Saviour  of  Humanity.  The  Gentile  writer,  consequently, 
while  accepting  certain  general  traditionary  facts  or  fan- 
cies which  were  supposed  to  identify  him  with  the  Jew- 
ish Christ,  does  not  dole  out  his  meagre,  but  steady 
string  of  scriptural  scraps,  like  the  writer  for  the  Jews. 
His  mental  conception  of  the  birth  of  Jesus  is  that  of  the 
advent  of  a  Greek  God,  rather  than  the  birth  of  a 
prophet-hoped  heir  to  the  royal  line  of  Judea.  The  con- 
verted Polytheist  abandons  the  unpoetic  machinery  of 
"  dreams  "  to  the  Jew,  and  calls  to  his  aid  the  members 
of  a  Triune  Deity  and  of  the  Archangelic  host,  and 
illuminates  every  phase  of  his  narrative  with  the  sheen 
of  angels'  wings.  To  the  Jew,  the  lamest  pretence  of  a 
"  sign  "  was  a  matter  to  arrest  instant  attention  ;  while 
to  have  a  star-guided  deputation  from  the  wise,  star- 
reading  Magi  of  their  ancestral  Chaldea,  was  of  most 
solemn  moment.  That  the  Magian  astrologers  could 
read  the  stars,  and  that  Joseph's  dreams  were  from  God 
they  could  devoutly  believe.  Such  machinery  and  evi- 
dences, however,  lost  their  charm  when  used  with  men 
who  had  never  heard  or  read  a  Jewish  prophecy,  nor 
ever  expected  a  "  sign,"  and  many  of  whom  had  never 
heard  of  the  Magi.  To  .a  Gentile,  a  nativity  heralded  by 
a  gorgeous  array  of  angels,  a  grand  overture  from  the 
Heavenly  choir,  an  annunciation  from  the  Premier  of 
the  Heavenly  host,  the  mysterious  "  overshadowing  "  of 
the  Virgin  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  the  miraculous  an- 
nunciation of  the  mysterious  union  of  the  divine  and 
human  natures  in  the  resulting  Man-God,  were  infinitely 
more  acceptable  and  effective;  since  all  the  "features 
and  flesh-marks  of  such  a  conception  found  appropriate 


254  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

prototypes  or  analogues  in  their  own  native  myths  and 
legends.  Mr.  Beecher  touches  the  true  spirit  which  in- 
spired this  account,  when  he  says  that  these  "  angelic 
ministrations "  would  "  greatly  facilitate  among  the 
Greeks  the  reception  of  Monotheism  " — furnishing  these 
Polytheistic  people  "  an  easy  transition  "  from  their  old 
religion  to  Christianity.  Thus,  we  find  our  second 
narrative  of  the  Nativity  formed  in  the  Hellenic,  rather 
than  in  the  Hebraic  mould. 

Let  us  note  further  and  more  specifically  the  dif- 
ferences and  conflicts  between  these  two  accounts  of  the 
same  series  of  events.  The  decisive  importance  of  this 
will  be  manifest  when  we  remember  that  we  are  called 
upon  to  believe  and  treat  them  as  inspired  and  infal- 
lible records  of  the  actual  'facts.  If  they  are  such,  they 
should  agree.  If  we  find  they  do  not  agree,  then  we 
shall  understand  the  value  of  such  inspiration  and  in- 
fallibility— nay,  their  value  even  as  mere  historic  evi- 
dence. 

After  the  general  differences  mentioned,  we  are  per- 
haps first  struck  by  the  fact  that  Matthew,  nowhere  in 
his.  whole  account,  presents  us  with  a  real  visible  or  auci- 
ble  angel,  but  supplies  his  limited  demand  for  supernat- 
ural intervention  by  the  dreams  of  the  "  wise  men  "  and 
of  the  aged  carpenter,  Joseph.  Dreams  answer  all  his 
purposes.  Luke,  on  the  other  hand,  flourishes  an  angel 
as  promptly  and  as  often  as  Matthew  enlists  a  dream  or 
forces  a  text  of  scripture ;  and  these  different  agencies 
and  methods  are  conflictingly  'used  for  identical  inci- 
dents and  purposes.  Luke's  account  also  appears  to  be 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       255 

more  congruous  and  artistic  than  Matthew's,  and  shows 
greater  regard  to  the  "  proprieties."  Matthew  permits  the 
poor  Virgin  to  become  enciente  without  her  knowledge, 
and  to  stand  dumb  and  defenceless  before  her  betrothed 
husband.  She  is  simply  "  found  with  child."  She  is 
nowhere  represented  as  speaking,  or  as  being  spoken  to, 
during  all  that  wonderful  drama  of  the  divine  incarnation 
and  her  own  apparently  humiliating  condition.  The  first 
and  only  announcement  of  her  innocence  and  true  con- 
dition is  made  to  Joseph  in  a  dream,  and  from  that  on 
the  whole  matter  is  carried  on  through  Joseph  and  his 
dreams, — Mary  being  a  "  dummy  "  throughout.  Luke, 
on  the  contrary,  makes  Mary  figure,  almost  exclusively, 
from  first  to  last ;  while  Joseph  is  permitted  to  take  no 
part  save  as  a  silent  attendant — is  not  even  permitted  to 
dream  once.  Matthew  having  determined  to  get  the 
child  into  Egypt  and  adopted  the  method  of  driving 
Joseph  thither  to  conceal  the  child  from  Herod,  was,  of 
course,  unable  to  have  the  child  taken  to  the  Temple, 
under  the  very  nose  of  Herod,  to  have  him  dedicated  to 
the  Lord  as  the  law  directed.  He  consequently  hurries 
Joseph  into  a  precipitate  flight  by  night  into  Egypt. 
Luke,  on  the  contrary,  does  not  seem  to  have  understood 
that  any  prophecy  required  the  Messiah  to  come  out  of 
Egypt,  and  does  not  permit  him  to  go  there  at  all.  And 
knowing  of  no  such  demand  for  going  into  Egypt  or  for 
avoiding  Herod  as  Matthew  tells  us  of,  he  never  hears 
(as  being  among  "  those  things  most  surely  believed  " 
among  Christians)  of  the  coming  of  the  "  wise  men  "  or 
of  their  wonderful  doings  or  of  the  wonderful  "  star  '' — 
never  heard  of  Herod's  council,  his  fears,  his  slaughter  of 
the  innocents,  etc.  No,  he  had  heard  of  no  such  occur- 


256  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

rences,  dangers  and  fears  preliminary  to  sending  the 
child  into  Egypt,  and,  consequently  and  in  lieu  of  all 
this,  has  the  child  proclaimed  in  the  open  Heavens, 
heralded  abroad  by  the  Shepherds,  has  him  duly  circum- 
cised on  the  seventh  day,  and  on  the  fortieth  day  has 
him  taken  to  the  Temple  and  publicly  dedicated  to  the 
Lord,  amid  much  prophetic  recognition  of  him  as  the 
Christ,  of  rejoicings  over  him  by  the  Faithful,  and  proc- 
lamations of  his  advent  to  all  that  were  waiting  for  the 
coming  of  the  Messiah.  And,  no  sooner  has  he  put  him 
through  all  these  lawful  as  well  as  marvellous  and  public 
processes,  than  he  has  him  fortliwith  started  to  Nazareth 
(in  an  opposite  direction  from  Egypt),  where  he  is 
silently  permitted  to  remain  until  his  fourteenth  year. 

But  Matthew  has  his  revenge  for  these  slights  and 
contradictions.  All  those  wonderful  proceedings  and 
speeches  between  the  angel  Gabriel  and  Mary  in  Naza- 
reth, the  visit  of  Mary  from  Nazareth  to  the  mother  of 
John  the  Baptist  and  the  wonderful  chantings  and  mira- 
cles thereupon  occurring,  the  Roman  taxation,  the  trip 
of  Joseph  and  Mary  to  Bethlehem  and  the  consequent 
birth  in  a  manger  under  the  heavenly  displays  of  the 
angels  and  the  rejoicings  of  the  shepherds,  and  the 
whole  scenes  at  the  temple  at  the  time  of  the  dedication 
are  not  only  ignored  by  Matthew,  but  are  in  effect 
denied  and  repudiated.  Both  Gospels  place  the  birth  at 
Bethlehem,  although  under  very  different  circumstances. 
Matthew  treats  Bethlehem  as  the  proper  residence  oi 
Joseph  and  Mary,  and  gives  a  special  reason  for  their 
turning  aside  from  their  Judean  home,  on  their  return 
from  Egypt,  and  moving  to  Nazareth  ;  and  he  tells  us 


EXAMPLES   OF   THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC. 

that  this  removal  to  Nazareth  was  also  to  fulfil  a 
prophecy  that  Jesus  was  to  be  called  a  "Nazarene." 
Matthew  had  no  need,  therefore,  for  getting  Joseph  and 
Mary  from  Nazareth  to  Bethlehem — from  where  they  had 
never  lived  to  their  ordinary  home,  or  for  supposing  or 
referring  to  occurrences  at  Nazareth  or  visits  from  Naz- 
areth or  the  trip  from  Nazareth  or  the  tax  which  caused 
it  or  any  of  the  miracles  and  wonders  accompanying  or 
resulting  from  them,  and  therefore  ignores  and  excludes 
them.  Luke,  on  the  contrary,  conceives  them  as  re- 
siding at  Nazareth  from  the  first,  and  returns  them  to 
that  place  as  soon  as  tbe  temporary  purposes  are  sub- 
served by  their  trip  to  Bethlehem.  The  movement  of 
the  two  accounts  are,  indeed,  as  different  as  their  agen- 
cies and  incidents.  Matthew  commences  with  them  as 
citizens  of  Bethlehem,  and  moves  them  first  to  Egypt, 
and  then  Nazareth.  Luke  commences  with  them  as 
residents  of  Nazareth  ;  then,  for  special  cause,  takes 
them  to  Bethlehem  ;  and  then  returns  them  direct  to 
Nazareth,  without  ever  sending  them  to  Egypt  at  all. 
The  reason  assigned  by  Luke  for  their  trip  from  Naza- 
reth to  Bethlehem,  seems,  in  every  way,  to  have  been  a 
hasty  and  unfortunate  one.  He  tells  us  that  when 
Cyrenius  was  governor  of  Syria,  Caesar  Augustus  or- 
dered a  taxation  of  the  whole  world ;  that  all  went  to 
their  own  cities  to  be  taxed  ;  and  that  Joseph  went  from 
Galilee  to  Bethlehem  to  be  taxed  "  because  he  was  of  the 
house  and  lineage  of  David."  There  is  an  inconsistency 
in  the  cause  here  assigned  even  by  his  own  showing,  for 
the  fact  that  David  had  once  lived  at  Bethlehem  cer- 
tainly did  not  make  it  the  "  own  city  "  of  his  descendants 
who  lived  elsewhere,  throughout  all  time. 

17 


258  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

But  the  first  and  most  prominent  difficulty  is  with 
the  tax  itself.  Josephus,  who  gives  us  a  very  minute 
history  of  this  period,  tells  us  of  Cyrenius  being  sent  as 
judge  over  Syria,  including  Judea,  and  of  his  being  or- 
dered to  take  an  account  of  the  substance  of  the  people, 
and  of  his  coming  into  Judea  for  that  purpose  with  his 
subordinate  officer  Coponius  as  procurator  of  Judea. 
But  this  was  the  only  tax  of  the  kind  mentioned  by  him, 
and  this  occurred  ten  years  after  the  death  of  Herod  the 
Great  (under  whom  Jesus  was  born)  and  after  the  ban- 
ishment of  his  son  Archelaus.  This  was,  in  fact,  the 
point  of  time  at  which  Judea  »was  first  reduced  to  a 
simple  Roman  province,  and  this  Coponius  was  its  first 
Roman  procurator.  And  this  was,  not  only  the  first 
known  tax  under  Cyrenius,  but  this  was  also  his  first 
appointment  to  this  Syrian  office  :  since,  not  only  has 
no  account  of  any.  previous  appointment  come  down  to 
us,  but  Josephus  takes  care  to  mention  his  former  posi- 
tions and  dignities,  and  would  certainly  not  have  omitted 
so  exalted  a  one  as  governor  of  Syria.  But  what  renders 
this  matter  morally  certain  is  the  fact,  that  this  was  the 
first  time  the  Roman  Emperor  was  in  a  condition  to  tax 
Judea.  During  the  reign  of  Herod  the  Great,  with  which 
we  are  alone  concerned,  since  it  was  then  that  Jesus 
was  born,  Judea  was  only  a  subject  kingdom  of  Rome. 
Herod  collected  his  own  taxes  and  expended  them  at  his 
pleasure,  and  he  alone  had  the  right  to  do  so.  He 
merely  made  presents,  or,  at  most,  paid  tribute,  to  the 
Emperor  of  Rome.  And,  so  soon  as  the  country  was 
reduced  to  a  mere  province,  we  find  the  taxing  power  at 
once  assumed  ;  but  never  before  that  time.  An  attempt 
to  have  directly  taxed  Herod's  subjects  would  have  been 


EXAMPLES    OF   THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.   . 

equivalent  to  dethroning  him — to  reducing  him  to  the 
rank  and  position  of  a  Roman  officer  ;  and  no  such  at- 
tempt could  have  been  made  without  producing  results 
which  would  have  found  their  way  into  history.  Beyond 
question  Josephus  would  have  mentioned  so  great  a 
change.  Even  after  the  kingdom  was  abolished  and  the 
taxing  power  assumed,  ten  years  after  the  death  of 
Herod,  this  taxing  power  was  continually  questioned 
and  opposed ;  and  never  ceased  to  breed  commotions 
among  the  people  until  the  §nal  fall  of  Jerusalem.  It 
was,  indeed,  one  of  the  charges  against  Jesus,  that  he 
opposed  the  tribute  to  Caesar.  It  appears  manifest 
then,  that  Rome  neither  had,  nor  attempted  to  exercise, 
the  right  of  taxing  the  people  of  Judea  until  it  was  re- 
duced to  a  province ;  and  that  Cyrenius  was  the  first  to 
make  an  assessment  for  that  purpose,  some  ten  years 
after  the  death  of  Herod  and  therefore  long  after  the 
birth  of  Jesus.  It  will,  at  once,  be  seen,  therefore,  how 
unfortunate  Luke  was  in  selecting,  or  how  misinformed 
in  adopting,  this  tax  under  Cyrenius  as  an  excuse  or 
reason  for  Joseph's  journey  to  Bethlehem,  happening 
many  years  before.  But  even  this  assumption  of  a 
cause  which  was  long  subsequent  to  alleged  effect,  is 
not  the  only  defect  in  this  conception.  We  are  told 
that  the  movement  to  Bethlehem  was  required  because 
Joseph  was  of  the  hot^e  or  lineage  of  David.  This  is 
the  express  and  sole  cause  assigned.  There  is  no  hint 
of  Mary  being  involved  in  this  cause :  such  an  inference 
is  excluded,  indeed,  by  the  mode  of  statement ;  nor  are 
we  at  liberty  to  assume  a  cause  when  a  cause  is  given. 
Now,  laying  aside  the  fact,  already  mentioned,  that  this 
necessity  did  not  arise,  even  with  Joseph,  by  the  declared 


2(5O  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

requirements  of  going  to  his  "  own  city, "  What  was 
there  to  require,  or  even  to  apologize  for,  the  compelling 
of  that  young  and  expectant  mother  to  ride  through 
almost  the  entire  length  of  Palestine  when  her  accouch- 
ment  was  so  imminent  ?  Where  was  the  necessity  for 
so  cruel  and  dangerous  an  experiment  ?  Mary  was  in 
no  sense  compelled  to  go,  even  if  Joseph  went,  by  Luke's 
own  showing.  But  might  not  Mary  herself  have  had  an 
•estate  at  Bethlehem  ?  While  we  are  precluded  from  this 
assumption  by  an  expressed  cause,  and  while  mere 
unfounded  suggestions  of  possible  but  unsupported  facts, 
such  as  this,  cannot  be  allowed  consideration  in  the 
original  establishment  of  another  fact,  (however  legiti- 
mate in  an  attempted  explanation  of  a  known,  but  ob- 
scure or  mysterious  one,)  this  particular  suggestion 
needs  no  such  general  exclusion  ;  since  it  is  not  only 
without  support,  but  is  at  war  with  the  Gospel  state- 
ments and  facts.  We  are  not  left  to  speculation  for  the 
cause  of  the  movement.  It  was  not  an  estate  of  any 
body,  anywhere,  that  compelled  it,  but  the  "  lineage  "  of 
Joseph.  This  is  the  cause  assigned  by  the  Gospel,  and 
by  this  cause  it  must  be  judged.  But  even  waiving  this 
direct  refutation,  will  any  Gospel  reader  believe  that  the 
mother  of  Jesus  was  a  landed  heiress  ?  Or  that,  having 
real  estate  in  Bethlehem,  she  would  have  been  driven  to 
a  stable  for  her  accouchment  ?  For  all  other  purposes, 
indeed,  Is  not  the  extreme  poverty  of  the  "  Holy 
Family  "  conceded  by  all,  and  proved  by  the  entire  tenor 
of  the  Gospels  ?  But,  even  allowing  that  such  a  sugges- 
tion were  possible,  would  the  fact  have  been  even  a 
reason,  much  less  produced  a  necessity,  for  Mary's  going 
in  person  to  have  it  assessed  ?  Is  not  a  man  as  compe- 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       26l 

tent  to  do  that,  alone,  as  with  his  wife  ?  And,  even  if 
Mary  were  compelled  to  personally  attend  to  her  own 
taxation,  was  she  not  compelled  by  the  terms  of  the 
decree  to  do  so  in  her  "  own  city  ?  "  Or  will  it  be 
denied  that  Luke  makes  her  "  own  city  "  Nazareth  ? 

When  we  review  all  the  considerations  showing  that 
the  taxation  expressly  referred  to,  and  the  only  taxation 
of  the  kind  which  could  have  occurred  up  to  that  time, 
was  not  decreed  until  more  than  ten  years  after  the 
birth  of  Jesus,  and  those  showing  that  even  Joseph, 
much  less  Mary,  were  not  only  under  no  possible  com- 
pulsion to  go  to  Bethlehem,  but  that  by  the  very  re- 
quirements of  the  decree,  as  stated  by  Luke  himself, 
their  proper  place  of  attendance  for  assessment  was  in 
their  "  own  city  "  of  Nazareth,  and  not  in  some  distant 
city  or  village  resided  in  by  some  remote  ancestor  of 
one  of  them, — when  we  review  all  these  considerations, 
we  say,  What  but  sheer  blindness  can  prevent  us  from 
perceiving  that  the  traditions  and  beliefs  which  Luke 
professes  to  give  were  unfounded  in  fact  as  to  this 
Roman  taxation  and  consequent  trip  to  Bethlehem ;  and 
that  Matthew  did  well  in  disregarding  and  repudiating 
the  whole  story  with  its  dependant  miracles  and  birth  in 
a  manger  ?  For  this  story  of  the  taxation  and  this  trip 
to  Bethlehem  is  the  back-bone  upon  which  the  entire 
story  of  Luke  is  built,  and,  if  it  be  stripped  from  it,  the 
entire  fabric  falls  to  the  ground,  with  all  its  glittering 
adornments;  and  Matthew  stands  justified  in  repudiating 
the  conceptions,  or  the  rumors  and  traditions  of  which 
it  was  built  up  by  Luke. 


262  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

Thus  we  find  that  our  assertion  as  to  the  errors,  the 
inconsistencies  and  the  mutual  contradictions  of  these 
Gospel  accounts,  has  been  made  good  upon  this  brief 
review  of  the  facts.  And  I  cannot  but  think,  that  any 
fair  and  free  mind,  upon  a  review  of  the  whole  facts  con- 
cerning the  conflicting  and  useless  genealogies  we  have 
considered,  and  the  two  singularly  defective  and 
markedly  dissimilar  and  contradictory  accounts  of  the 
birth  and  infancy  of  Jesus  which  accompany  them,  must 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  both  these  marvellous 
accounts  are  unhistoric  ; — that  they  are  the  natural  out- 
growths of  all  such  supernatural  religions — the  mythic 
and  legendary  mouldings  and  adornments  which  embody 
and  express  the  prevalent  ideals,  conceptions  and  long- 
ings of  all  developing  peoples  at  their  then  stage  of  de- 
velopment, as  specialized  and  modified  by  the  special  and 
actually  existing  influences,  needs  and  conditions.  Is 
it  not  derogatory  to  our  civilization  and  manhood  to  be 
compelled  to  confess  that  we  dare  not  accept  them  as 
such,  when  we  know  so  well  that  we  would  unhesita- 
tingly denounce  them  as  such  were  they  found,  letter 
for  letter  and  fact  for  fact,  in  any  other  sacred  books 
except  our  own  ? 


EXAMPLES   OF   THE   UNHISTORIC   AND    MYTHIC.      263 


CHAPTER  IX. 

EXAMPLES     OF     THE     UNHISTORIC     AND     MYTHIC     IN    THE 
GOSPELS CONTINUED. 

HAVING  briefly  considered  the  more  palpable  errors, 
inconsistencies  and  conflicts  in  the  two  narratives  detail- 
ing the  early  prophetic  and  miraculous  evidences  of  the 
claims  set  up  for  Jesus,  let  us,  then,  after  first  taking  a 
fair  and  rational  view  of  his  actual  and  true  relations  to 
the  Jewish  prophecies,  further  consider  these  alleged 
miraculous  evidences,  not  in  their  recitals,  but  in  their 
effects.  Let  us  inquire  whether  the  effects  which  they 
would  naturally  and  even  necessarily  have  produced  on 
the  lives,  conduct  and  declarations  of  the  parties  con- 
cerned and  conversant  with  such  marvellous  facts  and 
relations,  actually  did  result  and  were  manifested  in  this 
instance.  If  they  actually  existed,  the  persons  who 
knew  or  were  informed  of  them  would  have  thought, 
spoke  and  acted  as  z/"they  had  existed.  And  if  the  per- 
sons who  were  so  cognizant  of  these  asserted  facts  did 
not  act  in  conformity  with  such  a  knowledge  on  their 
part,  it  raises  a  violent  presumption  against  the  existence 
of  the  facts  themselves ;  and  if  it  should  further  appear, 
that  the  recorded  conduct,  acts  and  declarations  of  all 
the  persons  so  concerned  or  conversant  with  the  alleged 


264  JESUS    AND   RELIGION. 

facts,  were  inconsistent  with,  or  in  contradiction  of  such 
knowledge  and  relations  on  their  part,  then  such  a  state 
of  facts  will  be  conclusive -proof  of  the  non-existence  of 
such  miraculous  relations  and  evidences,  and  of  their 
subsequent  fabrication  ;  unless,  indeed,  there  could  be 
affirmatively  shown  sufficient  reasons  or  motives  oper- 
ating upon  each  and  all  of  them  for  such  reticence  and 
contradictory  conduct.  None  who  are  at  all  familiar 
with  the  laws  of  human  conduct  and  with  the  nature 
and  value  of  presumptive  evidence,  will  question  these 
positions. 

If  the  decision  on  either  of  these  points  be  unfavor- 
able, it  is  fatal  to  the  asserted  claims  of  Jesus,  and  will 
show  that  Christianity  was  not  the  creation  of  the  Jew- 
ish Christ,  but  has  itself  been  the  creator  of  its  own 
Christ  by  its  mythic  remodellings  of  Jesus.  In  the  first 
place,  it  is  undeniable  that,  if  Jesus  did  not,  in  good  faith, 
really  fulfil  the  Messianic  prophecies,  he  was,  to  say  the 
least  of  it,  a  mistake.  And  if,  in  the  second  place,  the 
habitual  life,  actions,  conversations  and  mutual  relations 
of  all  the  actors  in  the  drama  of  Jesus,  contradict  the  di- 
vine and  Messianic  nature  and  relations  set  up  for  Jesus 
in  the  narratives  of  his  conception,  birth,  infancy,  etc., 
then  those  accounts  must  be  considered,  not  only  as  un- 
historic,  but  as  fatal  to  his  claims. 

We  have  seen  the  kind  of  attempts  made  in  the  Gos- 
pels to  get  scriptural  phrases  which  could,  by  any  possi- 
bility, be  claimed  as  having  found  a  fulfilment  in  the 
person  and  life  of  Jesus.  It  must  be  specially  noted  in 
this  connection  that  these  attempts  were  made  long  after 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       265 

the  public  failure  and  execution  of  Jesus,  and  were  there- 
fore limited  and  controlled  by  those  undoubted  facts. 
They  were  confined  to  such  scriptures  as  were,  at  least, 
not  palpably  inconsistent,  as  they  supposed,  with  the 
more  prominent  and  notorious  facts  of  his  public  life. 
An  attempt  at  so  much  consistency  might  be  expected, 
even  from  tradition-mongers.  Jesus  could  not,  after  his 
humiliating  defeat  and  crucifixion,  be  claimed  to  have 
been  the  triumphant  Jewish  Messiah  and  kingly  suc- 
cessor of  David.  His  public  life  having  been  a  known 
failure,  those  who  knew  anything  of  him  or  the  proph- 
ecies were  compelled  to  ignore  all  this  in  their  efforts  to 
satisfy  prophecy.  Hence  it  is,  that  we  find  all  the  divine 
glories  and  the  miraculous  triumphs  .and  attestations 
which  were  witnessed  by  disinterested  parties,  clustering 
around  the  unknown  conception  and  infancy  of  Jesus,  or 
figuring  in  the  dreams  of  venerable  carpenters  and  astrol- 
ogers, who,  if  they  ever  existed,  had  long  since  passed 
beyond  human  reach  ;  while  his  entire  youth  and  early 
manhood,  which  could  still  have  been  verified  by  the 
Nazarenes,  is  left  an  utter  void,  save  by  one  single  con- 
temptuous reference  to  their  knowledge  of  it ;  and  the 
consequent  rejection  of  his  pretensions  b^  his  indignant 
neighbors,  and  an  account  of  a  single  visit  to  Jerusalem 
at  the  age  of  fourteen. 

The  most  striking  evidence,  however,  of  the  effect  of 
these  influences  upon  the  minds  of  the  writers  of  these 
accounts,  is  to  be  found  in  the  marked  difference  be- 
tween the  scraps  of  scripture,  or  pretended  scripture, 
and  fulfilments  which  they  were  compelled  to  resort  to 
when  the  actual  fulfilment  of  them  was  to  be  immediately 


266  JESUS    AND    RELIGION.  . 

pointed  out  in  the  past  facts,  and  those  scriptures  and 
fulfilments  which,  at  the  time  of  their  second  divine  an- 
nouncement, still  existed  in  futuro  and  in  promise.  We 
have  seen  how  they  avoided  those  portions  of  his  life 
which  were  the  more  ascertainable,  and  how  they  were 
driven  to  petty  garblings  and  perversions  of  scraps  of 
scripture  when  writing  for  the  Jews,  who  knew  some- 
thing of  the  prophecies  and  of  the  residence  and  life  of 
Jesus.  Let  us  now  turn  to  Luke,  who  writes  for  the 
Gentile  mind — a  mind  ignorant  and  out  of  reach  of  all 
that  appertained  to  Jesus  personally,  and  also  unfamiliar 
with  Jewish  prophecy.  We  find  Luke  utterly  ignoring 
Matthew's  fragments  and  fulfilments,  and  boldly  dashing 
off  into  facts  and  events  in  and  around  Jerusalem,  which 
no  citizen  of  Jerusalem  could  be  induced  to  credit.  He 
was  not  picking  out  scraps  of  scripture  or  fitting  them 
to  facts  before  a  critical  audience :  he  was  describing 
the  incarnation  and  birth  of  a  God,  and  proclaiming  the 
advent  of  the  Jewish  Messiah  ;  and,  in  proclaiming  what 
that  Messiah  was  and  was  to  become,  he  forgot  the 
actual  life  of  Jesus,  and  proclaimed  the  arrival  of  the 
triumphant  son  of  David,  for  whom  the  Jews  were  really 
looking.  He  introduces  the  Archangel  Gabriel  to  recite 
the  prologue,  or  programme,  of  the  Messianic  drama — a 
drama  then  still  to  be  performed,  and  therefore  unham- 
pered by  ugly  facts  or  critical  observers.  Thus  untram- 
melled, Gabriel  is  made  to  give  the  free  action  of  the 
author's  mind,  and  to  announce  the  true  Messiah  of  the 
Jews,  and  not  the  actual  Jesus — is  made  to  announce  a 
Messianic  programme  which  would  have  satisfied  the 
strictest  Scribe  or  Pharisee,  but  which  found  no  pretence 
of  a  fulfilment  in  the  actual  life  of  Jesus.  Turn  now  to 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC. 

the  first  chapter  of  the  third  Gospel,  and  hear  Gabriel's 
announcement : — "  Hail  [Mary]  thou  that  art  highly 
favored,  the  Lord  is  with  thee  :  blessed  art  thou  among 
women.  *  *  Fear  not,  Mary  :  for  thou  hast  found  favor 
with  God.  And  behold  thou  shalt  conceive  in  thy 
womb,  and  bring  forth  a  son,  and  shall  call  his  name 
Jesus.  He  shall  be  great,  and  be  called  the  Son  of  the 
Highest  :  and  the  Lord  God  shall  give  unto  him  the 
throne  of  his  father  David,  and  he  shall  reign  over  the 
house  of  Jacob  forever  and  of  his  kingdom  there  shall 
be  no  end."  Here,  beyond  all  power  of  misconstruction, 
we  have  the  true  triumphant  and  "anointed"  prince, — 
that  is,  "the  Christ"  of  the  house  of  David  who  was  to 
restore  the  royalty  and  dominion  of  his  house  and  secure 
the  triumph  of  Israel, — actually  announced  by  Gabriel  in 
the  person  of  Jesus.  This  expected  or  announced  child 
of  Mary,  according  to  Gabriel,  was  to  be  that  triumphant 
descendant  and  kingly  successor  of  the  royal  David, 
whom  the  same  prophecies  declare  should,  not  only  re- 
deem and  finally  establish  Israel,  but  should  himself 
receive  the  homage  of  the  princes  of  the  earth,  and  make 
the  City  of  Jerusalem  the  centre  of  earthly  power,  in- 
telligence and  beneficence. 

How  do  we  find  the  real  facts  as  to  the  fulfilment  by 
Jesus  of  this  Gabrielic  and  prophetic  programme  ?  It 
unfortunately  appears,  that  Jesus  did  not  ascend  the 
throne  of  David,  but  even  denied  that  the  Messiah  was 
to  be  a  son  of  David.  It  appears  that  he  did  not  reign 
over  the  house  of  Jacob,  nor  was  he  "anointed"  either 
as  priest  or  king  ;  and  that  he  did  not  save  the  Jewish 
people,  either  politically,  morally  or  religiously ;  nor  did 


268  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

he  make  Jerusalem  the  centre  of  light  and  power,  or 
himself  receive  the  homage  of  kings.  To  the  exact  con- 
trary of  all  this  he  was  regarded  by  the  Jews  as  a 
demoniac,  an  impostor,  and  pestilent  agitator,  and  was 
indignantly  rejected,  and  finally  condemned  and  executed 
for  blasphemy  and  treason  ;  while  the  city  which  he  was 
to  so  rule  and  glorify  was,  according  to  his  own  final  pre- 
diction, utterly  destroyed  within  that  generation,  and  the 
people  over  whom  he  was  to  reign  were  scattered  over 
the  world,  and,  from  thenceforth,  have  still  anxiously 
awaited  the  coming  of  him  who  should  really  "  redeem 
Israel "  and  crown  Jerusalem  with  the  glory  foretold  by 
her  prophets.  His  public  efforts  met  only  with  the  sad- 
dest failures,  and  the  cities  or  villages  in  which  they 
were  chiefly  made  he  immeasurably  denounced  and  con- 
signed to  a  hell  deeper  than  that  of  Sodom  and  Gomor- 
rah for  their  rejection  of  him.  Even  the  religion  which 
was  afterwards  based  upon  his  supposed  resurrection,  be- 
came the  religion  of  the  Gentiles — never  that  of  the  Jews. 
What  he  proclaimed  as  his  exclusive  mission  has  never 
been  fulfilled.  The  Jew  has  only  known  his  religion  to 
persecute  it  and  be  persecuted  by  it ;  and  now  Judaism 
and  Christianity  stand  side  by  side  as  "  oil  and  water." 
Was  all  this  a  fulfilment  of  the  promises  said  to  have 
been  made  by  the  Angel  Gabriel  in  announcing  this  same 
Jesus  ?  Looking  dispassionately  and  fearlessly  at  the 
plain  and  unequivocal  assurances  of  the  prophets,  at  the 
equally  unequivocal  assurances  of  Gabriel,  and  at  the  im- 
memorial and  never-doubted  constructions  and  beliefs 
of  the  Jews,  can  we  even  imagine  a  better  or  completer 
way  how  not  fulfil  them  than  is  presented  by  the  person 
and  life  of  Jesus  ?  If  God  had  deliberately  designed  to 


EXAMPLES   OF   THE   UNHISTORIC   AND    MYTHIC.      269 

deceive  the  Jews — to  hold  the  word  of  promise  to  their 
ear  while  breaking  it  to  their  hope,  could  he  have  more 
grossly  and  successfully  performed  it  ? 

Nor  will  it  do  to  gratuitously  assume  and  interpolate 
a  condition  into  the  prophecies  or  in  the  promises  of 
Gabriel,  and  then  inquire  whose  fault  it  was  that  the 
prophecies  and  annunciations  were  not  fulfilled.  There 
are  no  conditions  in  the  prophecies :  they  are,  and  pur- 
port to  be,  pre-statements  of  future  facts — to  be  pre- 
written history,  and  not  statements  of  conditioned  or 
contingent  possibilities.  If  they  were  the  latter  they 
would  not  be  prophecies  at  all,  and  any  subsequent 
conversion  of  them  into  such  contingent  promises, 
not  only  divests  them  of  their  character  and  only 
valuable  characteristic  as  prophecies,  but  is  a  liberty 
on  our  part  as  puerile  as  it  is  unwarranted.  If  the 
prophecies  are  from  God,  who  gave  us,  or  any  other 
mortal,  the  right  to  interpolate  conditions  in  them — 
much  less  adopt  something  we  think  oitght  to  have  ful- 
filled them,  and  then,  because  it  did  not,  destroy  the 
very  prophecy  itself  by  converting  it  into  a  condi- 
tional promise  which  might  have  been  fulfilled  by  our 
"  something "  if  some  other  person  or  thing  had  not 
failed  to  do  what  was  necessary  to  bring  it  about  ? 
We  have  no  right  to  thus  tamper  with,  or  pervert, 
the  unconditional  word  of  God  to  justify  our  peculiar 
notions  or  shield  our  own  errors.  The  prophets 
and  Gabriel  did  not  say  that  the  Jews  might  have  a 
Messiah,  or  that  Jesus  would  be  that  Messiah,  z/"  they 
would  accept  him ;  but  they  announced  the  fact  that  a 
Messiah  should  come,  and  had  come  in  the  person  of 


2/O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

Jesus,  who  should  be,  and  was,  the  "  son  of  David " 
and  the  "  Lord's  anointed,"  and  should  in  fact  be  "  great " 
— receiving  the  homage  of  earthly  potentates ;  should  in 
fact  sit  upon  the  throne  that  his  father  David  had 
occupied,  and  temporally  redeem  and  exalt  Israel.  What 
a  monstrosity  is  it  for  us  to  affirm  that  Jesus  fulfilled 
these  prophecies  and  promises,  by  asserting  that  he 
might  have  fulfilled  them  if  the  Jews  had  accepted  him  ; 
when  a/tfr/of  the  very  prediction  was,  that  he  was  to  be 
accepted  by  them,  and  to  actually  reign  over  them  ? 
And,  How  do  we  know,  or  how  dare  we  affirm — that,  if 
the  Jews  had  actually  accepted  him  and  crowned  him  as 
king  when  he  entered  Jerusalem,  the  Romans  would  not 
have  crushed  both  him  and  Jerusalem  sooner  than  they 
actually  did  ?  Even  his  assumed  conditional  success  is 
but  an  unwarranted  and  incredible  assumption.  But  a 
still  more  singular  inconsistency  in  this  matter  is,  that 
the  worshippers  of  Jesus,  in  the  face  of  these  prophetic 
assurances  and  these  direct  annunciations  through  the 
Heavenly  messenger  of  God,  not  only  attempt  to  excuse 
their  non-fulfilment,  and  cast  the  blame  upon  the  Jews, 
but  both  they  and  their  Master,  after  his  failure,  have  en- 
deavored to  construe  the  Scriptures  as  meaning  that  the 
Christ  should  fail  and  be  crucified,  and  have  based  the 
salvation  of  the  World  upon  the  fact  that  the  Jews  did 
reject  and  crucify  him.  What  a  pity  that  God  had  not 
given  Gabriel  a  hint  of  this,  instead  of  sending  him  forth 
with  his  flaming  annunciation  of  kingly  and  Jewish  tri- 
umphs !  What  a  deal  of  persecution,  misery  and  dis- 
appointment it  would  have  saved  his  "  chosen  people  " 
if  he  had  only  suggested  to  the  prophets  that  the  Mes- 
siah was  to  be  crucified  instead  of  crowned  ! 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC. 

Having  glanced  at  some  of  the  more  direct  evidences 
of  the  fact  that  the  miraculous  recognitions  and  pro- 
phetic fulfilments  asserted  of  Jesus  were  subsequent 
mythic  creations  or  adaptations,  and  not  real  facts  in  his 
history,  Let  us  continue  to  test  'this  matter  from  an- 
other point  of  view.  Let  us  briefly  consider"  some  of 
the  necessary  presumptions  arising  from  the  natural 
effect  which  the  asserted  facts  and  relations  would  have 
on  the  after-life,  sayings  and  conduct  of  the  persons 
concerned,  and  inquire  whether  the  parties  so  concerned 
did,  or  did  not  act  as  if  they  were  conscious  of  the  exist- 
ence of  such  facts  and  relations.  The  decisive  nature 
of  this  test  has  already  been  suggested. 

And  first : — How  will  the  conduct  and  declarations 
of  Jesus  himself  bear  this  test  ?  Everything  which 
pointed  to,  or  concerned  the  Christ  of  their  hereditary 
hopes,  was  a  matter  never  to  be  forgotten  by  a  Jew  ; 
and  in  no  age  was  this  interest  more  intense  than  in  the 
age  of  Jesus.  Under  the  feeling  then  existing  such 
marvellous  events  and  miraculous  and  public  attestations 
as  are  alleged  to  have  occurred  at  the  birth  and  dedica- 
tion of  Jesus,  would  have  been  borne,  as  on  the  wings 
of  the  wind,  to  the  Jews  of  all  lands ;  and  would  have 
awakened  a  tremor  of  hope  and  joy  from  the  Indus  to 
the  Thames.  The  venerable  Simon  and  Anna  are  ex- 
pressive types  of  what  millions  of  Jews  must  have  been 
under  such  an  inspiration,  and  the  results  which  would 
have  ensued  would  have  reached  posterity  through  many 
channels.  They  were  matters  never  to  be  forgotten  by 
those  who  witnessed  or  those  who  believed  them.  The 
announcement  of  a  divine  incarnation,  in  the  person  of 


2/2  JESUS   AND   RELIGION. 

the  Jewish  Christ,  by  an  express  messenger  from  God, 
and  its  actual  fulfilment  within  cannon-shot  of  Jeru- 
salem, in  the  midst  of  such  marvellous  supernatural 
manifestations  and  attestations,  was  not  at  all  a"  common 
occurrence,  or  one  likely  to  be  forgotten  by  any  mortal 
who  had  ever  been  cognizant  of  its  existence.  That 
this  event  must  have  been  known  to  many  thousands  of 
Jews,  as  well  as  to  the  court  of  Herod,  and  to  the  priests 
of  the  Temple,  is  claimed  by  the  Gospels.  That  there 
were  thousands  of  those  who  were  thus  conversant  with 
the  facts,  still  living  when  Jesus  appeared  publicly, 
thirty  years  afterwards,  is  a  necessary  inference.  The 
parties  directly  concerned,  surely,  could  never  forget 
such  facts.  Jesus  must  have  doubly  known  them  ;  first, 
through  his  mother ;  and  secondly,  through  his  own 
divine  intelligence.  If  he  did  not  know  them,  they  had 
never  existed.  If  he  did  know  them,  then  his  conduct 
and  declarations  would  have  been  consistent  with  such 
knowledge  and  facts. 

Two  claims  are  set  up  for  Jesus.  The  first  of  these 
is  that  he  was  God  incarnated  in  the  form  and  person  of 
the  Son  of  Mary  for  the  purpose  of  redeeming  such  of 
the  human  race  as  should  believe  in  him,  while  consign- 
ing to  eternal  torment  those  who  failed  to  accredit  and 
accept  him.  With  such  an  object  it  would  have  been 
the  highest  duty  of  this  Divine  Saviour  to  have  used 
every  power  and  every  possible  means  within  his  com- 
mand to  insure  belief  in  himself  and  his  mission  by  every 
human  being.  Nor  is  it  possible  to  conceive  of  a  God, 
so  beneficent  and  loving,  as  failing  in  this  essential  duty. 
Nor  is  it  possible  to  deny  that  Jesus  exhibited  the  most 
intense  longing  to  succeed- in  his  efforts  for  immediate 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       273 

acceptance  by  those  who  heard  him,  and  manifested  that 
intensity  of  desire  by  the  supreme  delight  with  which 
he  received  the  faith  of  even  the  humblest,  as  well  as  by 
the  tears  which  he  shed,  and  the  curses  which  he 
launched  on  account  of  his  failures. 

In  the  second  place  he  is  claimed  to  have  been  the 
Jewish  Messiah.  To  have  himself  accepted  as  this 
Messiah  seems  to  have  been,  his  first  and  chief  object, 
and,  indeed,  his  exclusive  object  until  after  his  final 
failure  and  execution.  For  he  not  only  expressly  con- 
fined those  early  efforts  of  himself  and  his  disciples  to 
the  Israelites,  hjit  he  expressly  declared  that  his  mission 
was  limited  to  that  race.  This  being  his  sole  or  even 
chief  object,  it  was  necessary  to  his  success  that  the 
Jews  should  believe  in  him.  He  knew  what  was  neces- 
sary to  secure  that  belief.  He  knew  that  they  not  only 
would,  but  did  expect  and  demand  of  him  all  the  ex- 
pected "  signs  "  or  indicia  of  the  Messiah  of  prophecy. 
The  prophecies  which  had  promised  the  Christ,  had 
also  promised  the  "  signs "  and  indicia  which  should 
herald  him  and  point  him  out.  It  would  be  by  them  that 
he  could  be  known,  or  not  at  all.  To  demand  these  of 
every  pretender  to  the  Messiahship  was,  therefore,  a  matter 
not  only  of  prudence,  but  of  necessity ;  since  they  had 
not  only  been  given  as  a  means  of  evidencing  and  test- 
ing the  Christ,  but  the  Jews  neither  had,  nor  was  ex- 
pected to  have,  any  Falstaffian  instinct  for  detecting  the 
"true  prince."  Nor  had  the  Jews,  be  it  remembered,  a 
single  one  of  those  miraculous  attestations  at  his  con- 
ception and  during  his  embryonic  and  infantile  life  or 
even  those  at  his  baptism,  temptation  or  transfiguration, 

18 


274  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

which  the  Gospels  now  furnish  for  their  believers.  He 
appeared  in  Judea  as  a  stranger,  purporting  to  have 
been  a  young  carpenter  from  a  remote  and  most  unfavor- 
able locality.  There  was  never  a  hint  of  his  birth  or 
parentage  or  of  his  place  of  nativity,  and  instead  of  com- 
ing from  Bethlehem,  as  they  expected,  he  came  from 
"despised  Nazareth,"  from  which  the  Jews  thought  no 
good  thing  could  come,  and  from  semi-Gentile  Galilee, 
from  out  of  which  they  alike  thought  no  prophet  could 
arise.  Everything  was  to  the  reverse  of  their  expecta- 
tions. He  was  found  first  exhibiting  his  powers  of 
healing  and  announcing  the  coming  of  "  the  Kingdom 
of  God,"  in  Galilee,  as  John  the  Baptist»had  been  doing 
in  Judea ;  and  he  was  soon  known  to  be  exciting  crowds 
and  selecting  a  following  out  of  the  lowest  classes  of 
the  Galileans.  Will  any  mortal  contend  that  the  Jews 
ought  to  have  expected  their  Messiah  to  come  from  such 
a  source  and  in  such  a  manner  ?  Will  any  mortal  con- 
tend, that  Jesus  coming  thus,  could  expect,  or  had  a 
right  to  expect,  that  the  Jews  would  accept  such  an  un- 
known pretender  under  such  circumstances,  without 
clearly  demonstrating  to  the  proper  judges  of  his  claims 
or  to  the  intelligence  of  the  nation  that  he  possessed  all 
the  "signs"  and  requisites  of  the  Messiahship?  Ought 
he  not  to  have  both  expected  a  demand  of  all  this,  and 
to  have  conceded  the  right  to  demand  it?  Ought  he 
not  to  have  known  that,  as  the  matter  of  his  claims  then 
appeared  to  the  Jews,  the  veriest  impostor  could  not 
have  had  less  show  of  a  claim  ;  and  that  to  place  his 
pretension  above  those  of  the  merest  charlatan,  he  must 
meet  the  prophetic  tests  required  by  the  Jews  ?  The 
Jews  came  to  him  promptly,  even  into  Galilee,  upon  the 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       2/5 

promulgation  of  his  claims,  and  urged  him  to  give  them 
these  necessary  assurances.  How  did  he  meet  them  ? 
Was  it  in  a  manner  to  convince  either  them  or  us  that 
he  desired  to  satisfy  them  and  had  the  power  and 
means  to  do  so  ?  The  Gospels  give  us  the  answer. 
From  the  very  beginning  he  angrily  refused  to  giv.e 
them  any  "sign"  by  which  they  could  judge  of  his 
claims,  roundly  declaring  that  they  should  have  none, 
and  denouncing  them  as  a  wicked  and  adulterous  gener- 
ation for  asking  it !  The  asserted  reference  to  the  sign 
of  Jonah,  even  were  it  not  an  interpolation,  could  only 
have  been  meant  as  a  mockery.  And  from  thenceforth 
he  never  ceased  to  berate  and  abuse  the  officials,  the 
lawyers,  the  doc-tors,  the  scribes  and  all  the  intelligent 
classes  and  sects  who  demanded  evidences  of  his  claims 
and  refused  to  believe  in  him  without  them.  He  not 
only  told  them  that  he  would  give  them  no  sign,  but 
kept  his  word.  He  would  perform  no  miracles  for  them  ; 
give  no  evidences  or  references  as  to  his  birth  ;  refer 
them  to  no  instance  of  his  many  divine  recognitions  or 
of  his  fulfilments  of  the  prophecies  ;  nor  assign  any  reason 
for  his  not  doing  so.  He  only  conversed  with  them  to 
controvert  and  belittle  their  views  and  to  berate  the 
classes  to  which  they  belonged.  One  kind  or  conciliating 
word  he  never  said  to  them.  One  attempt  to  rationally 
convince  them  he  never  made.  When  John  the  Baptist, 
just  before  Herod  had  him  executed,  sent  messengers  to 
him  to  inquire  whether  he  was  the  real  Christ,  he 
neither  referred  to  all  or  any  of  the  miraculous  divine 
recognitions  of  him  at  his  conception  and  birth,  which 
John  could .  not  but  have  known,  nor  to  his  divine 
recognition  in  the  presence  of  John — himself  and  John's 


2/6  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

own  solemn  testimony  that  he  was  the  "  Son  of  God ; " 
but  simply  referred  John's  messengers  to  his  works  and  to 
his  preaching  to  the  poor.  The  farthest  he  ever  went 
with  the  Jews  on  this  subject  of  evidence,  was  to  declare 
that  they  would  not  believe  him  if  he  did  give  it,  and  to 
say  that  two  witnesses — his  father  in  heaven  and  himself 
— bore  witness  to  himself,  well  knowing  that  such  proof 
could  equally  be  asserted  by  any  impostor  or  madman  and 
was  only  calculated  to  insult  and  disgust  the  Jews — as  it 
did.  Even  the  "wonderful  works  "  to  which  he  sometimes 
referred  them,  but  which  he  refused  to  perform  for  them, 
were,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  performed  under  circum- 
stances and  conditions  of  the  utmost  suspicion, — were 
never  witnessed  by  the  intelligent  classes,  and  were  also 
of  a  kind  which  the  Jews,  according  to  their  notions,  not 
only  could,  but  did  believe  to  have  been  performed  by 
demoniac  agency, 

In  view  of  all  these  facts,  a  question  of  immeasurable 
significance  arises,  namely  :  Why  did  not  Jesus  call  upon 
the  old  witnesses,  still  living,  who  could  prove  the  facts 
evidencing  his  divine  birth  and  nature  (which  his  dis- 
ciples so  profusely  published  long  after  the  witnesses 
had  passed  away),  and  array  before  the  Jews  those  evi- 
dences of  his  descent  from  David  which  were  so  triumph- 
antly displayed  after  his  death  ? — Why  did  he  not  at 
least  kindly  cite  them  to  the  sources  of  such  informa- 
tion, that  they  might  inquire  and  satisfy  themselves? 
Let  any  honest  and  fair  man  also  answer  the  following 
questions, — namely :  What  was  all  those  divine  annunci- 
ations in  Heaven  and  Earth  and  all  those  alleged  ful- 
filments of  Scripture  and  all  those  allege^  miraculous 
attestations  of  the  claims  of  Jesus/<?r,  or  what  were  they 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       2// 

worth,  if  they  were  not  to  be  used  and  to  operate  as 
signs  or  proofs  to  the  people  of  his  Messiahship  and 
divinity  ?  And,  if  they  were  so,  why  did  Jesus  himself 
utterly  ignore  them  when  they  were  most  sorely  needed 
and  justly  demanded  ?  Why  drive  from  him,  with  bitter 
vituperations,  the  proper  men  to  judge  his  claims,  and 
secure  his  success  because  of  their  asking  the  necessary 
and  universally-expected  evidences  of  his  identity  as  the 
Christ,  and  then  alternately  anathematize  and  weep  over 
them  for  rejecting  him  ;  when,  had  he  proved  one-half  of 
what  is  now  alleged  of  his  conception  or  birth  and, 
really  and  in  good  faith,  performed  one  single  miracle, 
such  as  that  of  the  "  loaves  and  fishes  "  or  "  raising  of 
Lazarus,"  in  the  presence  of  the  Sanhedrim,  the  priests 
and  the  multitude  in  the  Temple,  he  would  have  been 
hailed  as  the  Messiah  by  every  living  Jew,  and  the  men 
who  condemned  him  to  death  and  ignominy  would  have 
crawled  on  their  knees  to  kiss  the  dust  beneath  his  feet  ? 
Why  did  he  not  do  it  ?  Reason  can  furnish  but  one 
answer  to  such  questions  : — he  had  not  the  power  to 
furnish  such  signs  and  evidences  :  the  facts  were  wanting. 
Hence  his  petulance  with  the  classes  who  demanded 
them.  He,  on  his  part,  demanded  to  be  accepted  as  the 
Messiah,  but  to  demand  of  him,  in  turn,  the  proofs  or 
the  signs  of  his  Messiahship,  was  at  once  to  become 
"wicked  and  adulterous."  No  other  motive,  within  the 
pale  of  common  sense,  can  be  given  for  his  failure  and 
even  flat  refusal  to  furnish  such  evidences.  If  they 
existed,  his  avowed  object  and  manifest  purpose  as  well 
as  his  clear  duty  demanded  that  he  should  have 
furnished  them.  He  did  perform  works  as  "  signs" 
for  his  ignorant  disciples,  such  a*s  blasting  a  fig-tree  for 


2/8  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

failing  to  produce  fruit  out  of  season  ;  Why  then  refuse 
to  take  the  slightest  pains  to  convince  men  of  intelligence  ? 
Why  leave  all  the  divine  glories  surrounding  his  birth 
and  the  princely  honors  of  his  descent  to  "  waste  their 
sweetness  on  the  desert  air  ?  "  Why  have  his  temptation 
and  transfiguration  in  secret  ?  There  was,  and  could 
have  been,  but  one  reason  for  all  this  :  he  could  not 
safely  trust  his  miraculous  powers  before  the  intelligent 
and  critical  classes,  and  the  alleged  marvels  surround- 
ing his  conception,  birth,  infancy,  dedication,  temptation, 
transfiguration  and  baptism  were  born  far  too  late  for  his 
personal  use.  There  was  one  sign  and  test  which  was 
the  basis  of  all  other  Messianic  signs,  and  which  could 
have  been  then,  if  ever,  easily  proven, — namely,  his 
descent  from  David.  His  real  birth  and  parentage  were 
real  facts,  and  not  after-creations.  And  this  point  he 
accordingly  meets, — how,  we  have  already  seen, — namely, 
by  denying  that  the  Christ  was  to  be  a  son  of  David.  If 
true,  he  might  also  have  shown  that  he  was  born  at 
Bethlehem.  Thus  much  of  the  conduct  of  Jesus  to- 
wards the  Jews  and  of  its  consistency  with  the  subse- 
quently related  evidences  we  have  been  discussing.  His 
language  and  conduct  in  other  relations  will  be  con- 
sidered, with  this  same  view  as  we  proceed. 


Let  us  now  turn  our  attention  to  the  conduct  and 
declarations  of  John  the  Baptist,  and  see  how  they  cor- 
respond with  the  supernatural  manifestations  in  ques- 
tion. If  we  are  to  trust  Luke's  account,  Jesus  and  the 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       279 

Baptist  were  near  of  kin.  It  was  to  the  mother  of  John 
that  Mary  first  went  for  consultation  and  congratulation 
when  enciente  with  Jesus.  Their  family  sympathy  was 
great :  the  sympathy  of  the  two  men  as  divine  instru- 
ments in  a  common  purpose  was  still  greater.  John, 
who  was  the  special  messenger  of  God  to  announce  and 
prepare  for  the  coming  of  Jesus  as  the  Christ,  leaped  in 
responsive  recognition  of  this  unborn  God  when  the 
Virgin  approached  and  while  both  were  still  in  their 
mothers'  wombs.  Such  is  Luke's  account.  None  can 
read  it  and  consider  the  relations,  personal  and  divine, 
which  are  assigned  to  these  two  infants  and  doubt  that 
they  must  have  known  each  other  through  both  their  re- 
lationships, and  must  have  often  met,  if  not  elsewhere,  at 
least  at  the  great  Jewish  feasts  at  the  Temple,  where  all 
attended.  Through  the  same  relationships  as  well  as 
through  information  from  their  mothers,  they  must  have 
known  of  the  pretensions  of  each  other  and  of  the 
miracles  attending  their  anti-natal  meetings.  And  yet, 
if  those  scenes  and  relations  actually  existed,  How  shall 
we  account  for  the  alleged  fact  that  these  two  cousins 
afterwards  met  upon  the  Jordan  as  strangers  ?  For  the 
Baptist  is  made  to  expressly  declare  to  the  people  that 
he  "knew  him  not"  until  he  was  miraculously  pointed 
out  to  him  by  the  descent  of  the  Spirit  upon  him — (see 
John's  account).  Can  we  believe  that  John  had  to  have 
either  Jesus  or  his  mission  pointed  out  to  him  on  the 
Jordan  if  the  previous  relations  and  miraculous  scenes 
had  actually  existed  ?  Had  they  really  existed,  it  is  clear 
that  these  men  were  playing  preconcerted  and  fraudu- 
lent parts  before  the  people  :  a  conclusion  fatal  to  the 
honesty  of  both  and  far  more  improbable  than  that  their 


28O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

alleged   previous   relations   were   of  after   and   mythic 
growth. 

This,  however,  was  by  no  means  the  most  striking 
instance  in  which  the  Baptist's  conduct  and  language 
gave  a  flat  contradiction,  not  only  to  their  miraculous  re- 
lations and  meeting  before  their  birth",  but  also  to  this 
same  marvellous  divine  recognition  and  his  own  positive 
attestation  occurring  on  the  Jordan.  Long  after  all 
these  miraculous  and  divine  endorsements  of  Jesus  as 
the  Christ  and  Son  of  God,  expressly  for  John's  instruc- 
tion, and  long  after  John  had  recognized  him  from  his 
own  mother's  womb,  and  had  borne  positive  and  exultant 
testimony  that  he  was  the  Son  of  God,  this  same  John 
the  Baptist  sends  a  deputation  to  this  same  Jesus,  to  ask 
him  this  question — "  Art  thou  he  who  was  to  come,  or 
look  we  for  another  ?  "  Can  we  believe  this  to  be  the 
solemn  deposition  and  question  of  that  cousin  and  pro- 
phetic annunciator  of  Jesus  as  the  Christ  who  recognized 
him  while  both  were  yet  in  their  mothers'  wombs  ?  Can 
this  be  the  man  who  saw  the  Spirit  descend  upon  this 
same  Jesus  expressly  to  assure  him  that  he  was  the  ex- 
pected Christ,  and  who  bore  "  record  that  this  was  the 
Son  of  God  ?  "  What  was  all  these  miracles  worth,  and 
what  was  John's  testimony  or  "  record  "  worth,  if  the 
very  man  who  knew  the  miracles  and  for  whose  informa- 
tion they  were  performed  and  who  had  borne  solemn 
testimony,  from  these  divine  attestations,  that  Jesus  was 
the  Christ,  could  still  send  to  Jesus  to  solemnly  inquire 
of  him  if  he  was  the  Christ  ?  If  John  could  not  trust 
his  own  sight  and  his  own  inspirations  and  official  an- 
nouncements as  the  "  Forerunner  "  of  Jesus  the  Christ, 


EXAMPLES   OF   THE    UNHISTORIC   AND    MYTHIC.      28 1 

who  could  ?  or  who  ought  to?  When  we  see  the  old 
Prophet  sending  from  the  dungeons  of  Herod  to  inquire 
of  this  new  Agitator  and  Reformer  whether  he  was  the 
expected  Christ  or  whether  they  had  still  to  wait  for  his 
coming,  are  we  not  resistlessly  compelled  to  discard  those 
former  overwhelming  proofs  to,  and  declarations  by, 
John  himself  ;  and  to  regard  John  as  having  now  first 
heard  of  the  Messianic  pretensions  or  wonder-workings 
of  Jesus,  and  as  sending  from  his  prison  to  ascertain 
whether  this  new  man  was  the  one  whose  coming  he  had 
expected  and  had  proclaimed  as  so  imminent  ?  Are  not 
those  former  miraculous  and  positive  divine  attestations 
as  well  as  those  solemn  recognitions  and  affirmations 
of  John  absolutely  incompatible  with  this  subsequent 
ignorance  and  investigation  by  John  ?  If  all  that  is 
alleged  had  actually  passed  concerning  John  and  Jesus, 
could  John  have  sent  such  a  deputation  to  Jesus,  and 
especially  without  the  slightest  explanation  of  his  own 
inconsistency  or  causes  for  doubt,  or  even  an  allusion  to 
their  past  relations  ?  And,  is  not  the  conduct  of  Jesus 
himself  as  inconsistent  with  those  former  facts  and 
relations  as  that  of  John's  ?  He  neither  referred  John 
to  them — not  even  to  his  own  affirmation  of  the  divine 
recognition  of  him  as  the  Christ,  nor  does  he  express  the 
least  surprise  at  John's  ignorance  or  investigation,  or  in 
any  manner  indicate  that  John  had  ever  previously  met 
or  known  him.  John  sends  to  him  as  to  a  stranger,  and 
Jesus  receives  and  answers  his  deputation  as  he  would 
have  done  one  from  any  other  unknown  man  of  the 
character  of  John.  He  refers  John  to  no  past  evidences 
of  his  claims  whatever,  but  simply  to  his  present  works 
and  preaching.  Looking  at  the  conduct  and  language 


282  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

of  these  two  men  upon  this  occasion,  and  at  the  natural 
and  legitimate  implications  from  them,  we  are  again  com- 
pelled to  conclude  that  the  miraculous  scenes  asserted  to 
have  existed  at  the  meeting  of  their  mothers,  before 
their  birth,  as  well  as  those  at  their  own  meeting  on  the 
Jordan,  were  utterly  unknown  to  either  of  them — were- 
in  fact,  the  sheer  inventions  or  mythic  growths  of  after 
times,  and  that  these  men  knew  nothing  of  each  other 
beyond  the  probable  fact  that  Jesus  was  among  the 
thousands  who  flocked  to  the  Jordan  to  receive  bap- 
tism of  John  and  hear  him  preach  of  the  imminence 
of  the  "  Kingdom  of  God,"  and  of  the  coming  of  the 
Lord's  anointed  King — the  Christ  of  the  Jews. 


Having  glanced  at  the  conduct  and  declarations  of 
this  "  Forerunner"  of  the  Christ  in  relation  to  Jesus,  Let 
us  turn  to  those  of  the  "  Mother  of  God,"  with  the  like 
view  of  testing  their  consistency  with  a  knowledge  on 
her  part  of  the  asserted  relations  and  divine  attestations 
of  her  son,  Jesus.  And  right  here  we  find  our  most 
painful  task — a  task,  however,  which  shall  be  as  fear- 
lessly as  it  is  faithfully  performed.  For,  however  un- 
pleasant it  may  be  to  expose  the  faults  or  frailties  of 
those  whose  undeniable  good  qualities  we  revere,  or  to 
expose  those  persons  who  have  become  objects  of  wor- 
ship to  others,  it  is  all  the  more  necessary  to  be  loyal  to 
truth  when  such  faults  and  frailties  are  sheltered  by 


EXAMPLES    OF   THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       283 

Superstition  to  the  detriment  of  human  development 
In  such  cases  it  becomes  cowardly  to  be  weak,  and  a 
crime  to  be  cowardly. 


The  non-existence  of  the  alleged  miracles  and  favor- 
able evidences  attending  the  conception  and  birth  of 
Jesus  fully  accounts,  but  can  alone  account,  for  his 
silence  in  regard  to  them  ;  but  it  is  by  no  means  so  easy 
to  account  for,  much  less  justify,  his  reticence  and  more 
than  indifference  concerning  his  family  relations.  If  the 
Gospel  narratives  are  true,  the  Jewish  virgin  whom  God — 
(that  is  Jesus  himself) — had  chosen  to  be  the  mother  of 
his  own  incarnate  self,  would  have  been  entitled  to  be 
treated  as  she  was  assured  she  would  be, — namely,  as 
the  "  highly  favored  of  God "  and  "  blessed  among 
women."  Jesus  should  not  only  have  had  the  customary 
love  and  respect  for  his  mother,  but  should  have  loved  and 
reverenced  her  in  proportion  to  the  lofty  isolation  of  her 
glory  and  divine  favor.  The  correlative  view  of  their 
relations  should  have  insured  an  unparalleled  love  and 
reverence  for,  and  faith  in,  her  divine  son,  by  the  Virgin. 
Knowing  what  they  both  did,  their  love  and  reverence 
for  each  other  should  have  been  unfaltering  and  un- 
bounded, and  Mary's  confidence  in  his  divine  nature 
and  mission  should  have  been  perfect  and  abiding. 
Neither  could  ever  forget  what  they  were,  or  what  they 
were  to  each  other.  The  most  stupendous  event  of  all 
time  connected  them  together  in  bonds  never  to  be  par- 
alleled and  never  to  be  ignored  and  forgotten. 


284  JESUS   AND   RELIGION. 

Upon  the  part  of  both,  but  especially  upon  the  part 
of  Jesus,  such  expectations  were  destined  to  a  complete 
and  sore  reversal.  On  the  part  of  Mary  they  were  sin- 
gularly and  significantly  reversed,  so  far  as  they  depend- 
ed upon  any  supposed  supernatural  relations.  She  was 
simply  a  good  human  mother  of  a  human  son  : — no 
more.  •  It  would  be  impossible  to  affirm  even  thus  favor- 
ably of  Jesus.  One  kindly  word  of  remembrance  of  the 
good  old  carpenter  who  had  so  dreamed  ior  his  safety,  so 
fled  for  his  security,  and  so  labored  for  his  support,  or  of 
his  most  blessed  and  divinely  favored  mother,  or  of  those 
brothers  and  sisters  who  had  been  the  companions  of 
his  youth  ;  or  one.  word  of  tender  memory  of  home,  or  of 
the  past,  he  appears  never  to  have  uttered  ;  nor  during 
all  his  career  does  it  appear  that  he  ever  sent  one  mes- 
sage of  kindness  or  remembrance  to  either  of  them — no, 
not  even  from  the  cross.  He  never  either  mentions  their 
names  or  directly  recognizes  their  relationship.  While 
they  had  a  home,  he  claimed  to  be  homeless,  and  without 
a  "  place  to  lay  his  head."  He  never  visited  them  or 
treated  them  as  relatives. 

Four  times,  and  only  four  times,  does  this  meek  and 
patient  old  Nazarene  mother  appear  in  the  history  of  her 
son,  Jesus,  after  their  alleged  return  to  Nazareth.  Once 
when  he  is  taken  with  her,  at  tvyelve  years  of  age,  to  the 
Temple.  On  this  occasion  Joseph  and  Mary,  not  finding 
Jesus  when  they  wished  to  depart,  supposed  him  to  have 
gone  on  with  other  Galilean  families  who  had  already 
departed,  and  took  up  their  journey  without  him.  They 
found,  however,  that  they  were  mistaken,  and  that  Jesus 
had  naughtily  escaped  them  and  remained  at  Jerusalem. 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORJC    AND    MYTHIC.       285 

They  were  compelled  to  return,  and  it  was  only  after 
three  days  of  anxiety  and  trouble  that  they  were  enabled 
to  find  him.  No  reasoning  caji  justify  such  conduct,  nor 
make  it  other  than  a  naughty  and  cruel  boyish  freak. 
He  had  wilfully  deceived  his  parents  and  disregarded 
their  wishes,  and  had  put  them  to  great  trouble  and 
anxiety.  Nor  will  our  estimate  of  this  divine  sample  of 
filial  piety  increase  when  we  reflect  upon  the  treatment 
he  gave  his  mother  after  all  her  trouble  and  anxiety  in 
finding  him.  Do  we  find  the  prompt  contrition,  the 
tender  pity  for  his  suffering  mother,  and  the  anxious 
atonement  which  might  be  expected  from  a  thoughtless, 
but  generous  boy  ?  Is  the  mother  kissed  and  forgive- 
ness asked  ?  The  Gospel  presents  a  very  different 
scene.  Luke  gives  it  to  us  in  the  following  words  (and 
remember  they  are  from  a  boy  of  fourteen) :  "  And  when 
they  saw  him  they  were  amazed,  and  his  mother  said 
unto  him,  Son,  why  hast  thou  thus  dealt  with  us  ?  Be- 
hold thy  father  and  I  have  sought  thee  sorrowing.  And 
he  said  unto  them,  How  is  it  that  you  sought  me  ?  Wist 
ye  not  that  I  must  be  about  my  master  s  business  ?  And 
they  understood  not  the  saying  which  he  spoke  to  them." 
Is  this  the  answer  we  had  a  right  to  expect  to  this  gentle 
mother's  appeal,  from  such  a  son  to  such  a  mother  ?  Even 
if  he  had  had  "business"  justifying  his  detention,  could 
he  not  have  previously  informed  them  of  it  and  saved 
them  from  seeking  him  for  three  days,  "  sorrowing  ?  " 
His  answer  shows  that  he  was  neither  afraid  nor  ashamed 
to  do  so.  But  why  was  it  that  Joseph  and  Mary  were  so 
alarmed  about  the  disappearance  of  this  lad  ?  Could  he 
get  lost  ?  Had  Joseph  forgotten  his  dreams !  Had 
Mary  forgotten  the  angel  Gabriel  and  all  that  wonder- 


286  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

ful  past  ?  Had  they  both  forgotten  that  this  was  a  "son 
of  the  Highest " — an  incarnate  God  ?  How  is  it,  also, 
that  he  himself  does  not  recall  those  facts  to  their  at- 
tention, but,  on  the  contrary,  hears  himself  called  the 
son  of  Joseph,  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  speaks  of  God, 
not  as  his  father,  but  as  his  master?  And,  How  is  it  that 
we  find  it  admitted  that  those  partakers  and  principals 
in  the  early  scenes  of  his  divine  recognition  and  glory, 
could  not  even  understand  him  when  he  spoke  about  his 
"  master's  business  ? "  Of  what  conceivable  use  were 
those  early  divine  annunciations,  those  heavenly  displays, 
those  recognitions  of  the  "  wise  men  "  and  of  the  ven- 
erable servants  of  God  in  the  Temple,  if  Joseph,  Mary 
and  Jesus  had  already  forgotten  them  ?  Let  any  free 
mind  ask  itself  whether  such  scenes  and  such  language 
could  havs  occurred  between  these  parties  if  the  divine 
relations  and  miraculous  facts  previously  recited  had 
ever  really  existed, 

Mary's  next  appearance  was  not  until  her  son  had 
entered  upon  his  public  career.  They  were  both  at  the 
wedding  feast  at  Cana  of  Galilee,  and  the  mother,  per- 
haps knowing,  if  the  story  is  to  be  credited,  of  his  being 
possessed  of  some  recipe  for  making  an  imitation  of 
wine  (as  thousands  of  gallons  are  now  made)  came  to 
him  and  remarked — "  They  have  no  wine."  This  simple 
announcement  of  a  simple  fact  brought  down  upon  the 
mother  a  contemptuous  rebuke,  as  unprovoked  as  it  was 
unaccountable — at  least  upon  any  creditable  state  of  facts. 
To  this  simple  remark  of  the  mother  the  son  replies — 
"  Woman,  what  have  /  to  do  with  thee  f  Mine  hour  has 
not  yet  come."  Let  us  analyze  this  second  sample  of 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       287 

divine  filial  piety  and  affection — this  new  instance  of 
tender  regard  and  reverence  for  this  "favored  of  God" 
and  "  blessed  among  women."  What  manner  of  address 
was  this  of  "  woman,"  for  a  mother — and  such  a  mother  ? 
Was  it  the  customary  style  of  address  of  the  people 
and  time  ?  Far  from  it.  Was  there  anything  in  the 
mother's  question  causing  or  justifying  it?  Nothing. 
Was  it  a  personal  peculiarity  in  his  treatment  of  women  ? 
We  answer  doubly :  first,  that  were  it  such,  it  was  by  no 
means  a  commendable  one,  much  less  a  divine  one  ; 
secondly,  that  he  had  no  such  unpardonably  rude  habit 
with  any  woman  save  his  mother.  On  the  contrary,  he 
was  noted  for  his  wholly  exceptional  tenderness  and 
gentleness  to  women, — even  the  most  guilty  and  aban- 
doned of  them.  When  Mary  Magdalen,  who  had  been 
as  much  the  residence  and  as  great  a  favorite  of  devils 
as  his  own  mother  had  been  of  God,  stood  near  him  at 
the  sepulchre,  without  at  all  knowing  him,  he  did  not  ad- 
dress her  as  "  woman,"  but  addressed  her  as  "  Mary  " — 
in  so  gentle  a  voice  as  to  bring  her  instantly  to  his  feet 
with  the  exclamation,  "  My  Lord  and  my  Master  ! "  His 
gentle  forgiveness  of  the  adulteress  in  the  Temple  has 
won  him  many  hearts.  A  number  of  other  instances 
could  be  cited,  showing  that  he  was,  not  only  gentle  and 
tender  with  women,but  was  noticeably  fond  of  their  gentle 
ministrations  and  personal  attentions,  without  regard  to 
their  character  or  public  repute.  His  mother  and  sisters 
seem  to  have  been  specially  excluded  from  his  uniform 
kindness  to  women  and  children, — especially  the  mother. 

But  again :    What  does  he  mean  by  saying  to  his 
mother — "  What  have  I  to  do  with  thee  ? "     She  had 


288  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

asked  him  to  do  nothing  with  or  for  her,  or  anybody  else. 
What  could  have  been  his  object  in  making  this  rude 
and  uncalled-for  answer,  unless  it  were  a  gratuitous  re- 
nunciation of  her,  and  a  sullen  putting  her  aside  for 
having  spoken  to  him  at  all  ?  And  again  :  What  does 
he  mean  by  that  favorite,  ominous  and  oracular  expres- 
sion— "mine  hour  has  not  yet  come."  What  hour?  Not, 
surely,  the  hour  for  snubbing  his  mother,  for  that  hour 
had  both  come  and  gone.  The  natural  inference  would 
be  that  his  hour  for  doing  what  he  supposed  her  to  sug- 
gest had  not  come.  But  we  are  at  once  met  by  the  fact 
that  he  straightway  entered  upon  the  operation  of  sup- 
plying the  very  deficiency  in  wine  for  the  suggestion  of 
which  he  had  snubbed  her.  What  then  could  he  mean  ? 
Can  any  mortal  tell,  unless  it  was  merely  to  snub  his 
mother,  or  a  mere  ponderous  assumption  of  superiority 
and  mystery,  as  a  prelude  to  his  performance  ?  May  we 
not,  at  all  events,  again  repeat  the  question — Is  this  a 
scene  between  an  incarnate  God  and  his  mother  ? 

The  next  appearance  of  this  "  Blessed  among 
women  "  was  still  more  illustrative  of  the  views  and 
feelings  of  Jesus  concerning  his  mother  and  family,  as 
well  as  of  their  feelings  and  opinions  regarding  him.  In 
the  twelfth  chapter  of  Matthew  we  are  told,  that — 
"While  he  yet  talked  to  the  people,  behold  his  mother 
and  his  brethren  stood  without,  desiring  to  speak  to  him. 
Then  said  one  unto  him,  Behold  thy  mother  and  thy 
brethren  stand  without  and  desire  to  speak  with  thee. 
But  he  answered — who  is  my  mother  ?  and  who  are  my 
brethren  ?  And  he  stretched  forth  his  hand  towards 
his  disciples  and  said :  Behold  my  mother  and  my 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       289 

brethren !  For  whosoever  shall  do  the  will  of  my 
father  which  is  in  Heaven,  is  my  brother  and  my  sister 
and  my  mother."  To  apologize  for  this  public  repudia- 
tion of  all  family  and  social  ties  it  has  been  said  that  he 
was  terribly  excited  by  their  attempts  to  get  hold  of  him 
for  the  particular  reason  assigned.  This  reason  will  be 
found  in  Mark's  recital  of  this  same  occurrence  (iii. 
20-23),  in  which  it  is  said — "And  the  multitude 
cometh  together  again,  so  that  they  could  not  so  much 
as  eat  bread.  And  when  his  friends  heard  of  it,  they 
went  out  to  lay  hold  on  him,  for  they  said,  He  is  beside 
himself.  And  the  scribes  which  came  down  from  Jeru- 
salem said,  He  hath  Beelzebub,  and  by  the  prince  of 
devils  casteth  he  out  devils."  His  friends  thought  him 
"  beside  himself,"  and  the  scribes  who  had  come  down 
from  Jerusalem  to  witness  his  performances,  regarded 
him  as  "  devil-possessed  " — the  ugliest  form  of  insanity. 
His  friends — that  is,  his  own  family,  were  trying  to  get 
possession  of  him  and  save  him  from  the  consequences 
which  finally  overtook  him.  This  was  the  sorest  of  all 
questions  with  him,  and  he  declared  it  the  one  unpardon- 
able sin  to  charge  that  he  was  "  possessed  "  or  what  we 
would  now  term  insane.  Whether  he  knew  his  mother's 
object,  at  the  time,  is  not  certain;  since  he  did  not  wait 
to  inquire,  but  refused  even  to  see  her,  and  publicly  dis- 
claimed having  either  mother,  brothers  or  sisters  save 
his  followers.  Let  any  free  mind,  however  grounded  in 
the  Christian  faith,  if  such  a  mind  can  be  free,  ask  itself 
whether  this  wildly  excited  young  man  who  refuses  to 
see,  and  publicly  repudiates  his  own  mother  and  all  his 
family — (even  his  sisters  who  were  not  present,)  can 
possibly  be  that  "  holy  thing  "  which  Gabriel  said  should 

19 


2QO  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

be  born  of  this  same  mother  and  be  "  called  the  Son  of 
God  ; "  or  whether  this  anxious  and  suffering  mother, 
surrounded  and  supported  by  her  other  sons,  and  en- 
deavoring to  secure  her  eldest  son  Jesus  as  one  "  beside 
himself  " — can  possibly  be  that  same  woman  who  was 
"  overshadowed  "  by  the  Holy  Ghost  at  the  conception 
of  this  same  "  Son  of  God  ?  "  Did  she  now  forget  that 
that  divine  son  of  her  virginity — that  incarnate  God 
was  the  identical  person  whom  she  is  now  attempting  to 
"  lay  hands  on  "  as  one  "  beside  himself,"  and  that  too 
for  proclaiming  himself  to  be  just  what  the  messenger 
of  God  had  told  her  he  was  to  be,  and  just  what  she 
had  exultantly  proclaimed  him  to  be  to  the  mother  of 
the  Baptist,  and  just  what  she  of  all  beings  save  God 
(if  the  Gospels  be  true)  best  knew  him  actually  to  be  ? 
Did  she  think  the  incarnate  God — the  very  Christ,  could 
go  crazy  ?  Does  she  now  feel  that  she  herself  is 
"  highly  favored  of  God "  and  "  blessed  among 
women  ?  "  Why,  in  this  strange  and  trying  scene,  did 
neither  this  divine  son  nor  his  blessed  mother  ever 
think  of  these  things  or  remind  each  other  of  them  ? 
Do  not  these  questions  point  to  an  inconsistency  and 
incompatibility  between  the  asserted  early  life  and  rela- 
tions of  this  mother  and  son  and  these  later  scenes  and 
relations,  which  no  ingenuity  can  deny  or  evade  ? 

This  poor,  snubbed,  repudiated,  but  still  loving  and 
human  mother  is  seen  once  more — is  a  witness  of  that 
final  catastrophy  to  which  she  and  his  brothers  had  so 
long  feared  he  was  rushing.  Those  disciples  who  had 
been  accepted  in  her  stead  when  she  had  been  repu- 
diated, and  who  had  enjoyed  his  smiles  and  triumphs, 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       2QI 

had  now  fled,  and  were  in  hiding.  The  weary  limbs  of 
this  aged  mother  had  mounted  Calvary  with  him — her 
aching  heart  responding  to  every  pang  of  her  suffering 
son  :  a  patient,  human  mother  still  !  And  now,  if 
never  before,  one  hopes  that,  while  dealing  out  forgive- 
ness to  his  insulters  and  enemies  and  awarding  the 
joys  of  paradise  to  thieves  as  he  sits  on  his  cross,  he 
would  say  something  to  that  patient  and  agonized  mother, 
and  send  some  kind  farewell  words  to  his  brothers  and 
sisters.  He  did  not  do  it.  His  last  and  only  words  to 
her  were — "  woman,  behold  thy  Son  : "  meaning  thereby 
to  consign  her  to  the  care  of  the  Apostle  John  as  her 
adopted  son.  This  was  all  !  . 

What  was  the  cause  of  this  utter  abandonment  and 
express  repudiation  of  his  mother  and  of  his  brothers 
and  sisters  ?  The  answer  is  not  doubtful.  Neither  his 
own  family  nor  his  old  neighbors  of  Nazareth  would 
believe  in  him.  When  he  set  up  his  high  pretensions  or 
proclaimed  himself  the  Christ  or  Son  of  God,  his  old 
neighbors  were  indignant  and  regarded  him  as  a  pre- 
sumptuous impostor  :  his  family,  who  had  known  him 
longest  and  best,  regarded  him  as  "  beside  himself :  " 
while  the  Jews  believed  him  not  merely  a  maniac,  but  a 
demoniac.  This  will  account  for  why  his  mother  never 
returned  nor  replied  to  his  rebukes  :  with  her  opinions, 
she  could  not  scold  him  :  she  could  only  pity,  and  be 
silent.  He  was,  as  we  have  said,  so  sensitive  on  this 
point  of  his  insanity,  that  he  could  not  tolerate  even  his 
own  family  for  honestly  believing  it  and  desiring  to 
restrain  and  take  care  of  him  ;  while  the  charge  of  the 
more  odious  form  of  insanity — namely,  "  devil  pos- 
session," rendered  him  so  furious  as  to  make  him  de- 


JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

clare  it  the  "unpardonable  sin" — or  "sin  against  the 
Holy  Ghost  " — that  is,  the  sin  of  attributing  his  own 
power  and  inspiration,  which  he  claimed  to  be  from  the 
Holy  Ghost,  to  the  Devil.  He  was  morbidly  sensitive 
on  this  point,  and  also  as  to  the  slightest  doubt  or 
distrust  on  the  part  of  his  friends  ;  and  it  is  to  these 
morbid  feelings  and  fears  that  we  are  to  attribute  his 
unkind  and  unnatural  treatment  of  his  family.  He 
could  tolerate  no  one  who  doubted  him  :  he  was  furious 
at  all  who  suspected  or  questioned  his  sanity — more 
especially  at  his  own  family. 


Both  of  the  remaining  supernatural  recognitions  of 
Jesus  as  the  Christ  (outside  of  his  own  works)  will  be 
found  to  have  the  same  cause  and  basis  for  a  mythical 
origin  and  the  same  isolation  from,  and  incongruity  and 
inconsistency  with,  the  actual  facts,  as  those  already 
considered.  The  first  of  these — the  forty  days'  fast  and 
temptation  in  the  wilderness,  has  all  the  marks  of  the 
myth-moulds.  It  was  clearly  an  effort  to  further  repre- 
sent Jesus  as  an  antitype  of  Moses, — in  his  act  of  fasting 
forty  days  in  Mount  Sinai ;  and  perhaps,  also,  of  the  Is- 
raelites in  their  forty  years'  wanderings  in  the  desert. 
It  is  only  mentioned  in  three  of  the  Gospels.  Luke,  and 
perhaps  Matthew,  would  have  us  to  believe  that  Jesus 
wholly  abstained  from  food  for  forty  days,  but  Mark 
would  seem  to  have  had  the  miraculous  feeding  of  the 
Israelites  on  manna  in  view,  as  a  part  of  the  type  to  be 
fulfilled,  and,  instead  of  declaring  that  he  fasted,  he  tells 
us  that  "  the  angels  ministered  unto  him."  The  scene 


EXAMPLES    OF   THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC. 

between  Jesus  and  Satan  is  only  mentioned  in  Matthew 
and  Luke,  and  the  dialogue  is  given  by  them  in  language 
too  identical  for  separate  independent  recollections  of  it ; 
and  yet  the  copyist  or  concordist  has  made  just  enough 
change  to  expose  his  animus,  and  yet  in  a  manner  to 
confirm  the  real  identity  of  their  source.  The  asserted 
dialogue  is  as  precisely  expressive  of  the  conceptions 
and  mental  stattts  of  the  men  who  wrote  and  manipulated 
the  Gospels,  as  it  is  inappropriate  to,  and  discordant 
with,  the  mentality  and  relations  of  the  incarnate  God  and 
his  great  rival,  yet  subject  Spirit.  John,  however,  sets 
the  whole  matter  at  rest,  if  he  is  to  be  credited.  He 
not  only  does  not  mention  the  matter  at  all,  but  his 
narrative  of  the  acts  of  Jesus  during  the  identical  same 
period  positively  forbids  the  possibility  of  this  sojourn 
in  the  wilderness.  All  the  other  Gospels  concur  in 
placing  it  directly  after  the  scene  between  John  the 
Baptist  and  Jesus  on  the  Jordan,  and  Mark  expressly 
states  that  he  was  immediately  driven  into  the  desert  at 
the  close  of  that  scene.  John,  on  the  contrary,  not  only 
does  not  give  the  slightest  hint  of  such  an  occurrence, 
but  expressly  and  specifically  details  the  actions  and 
whereabouts  of  Jesus  for  many  consecutive  days  after  this 
scene  with  the  Baptist  and  while,  according  to  the  others, 
he  was  already  in  the  wilderness.  And,  instead  of 
taking  him  into  the  wilderness  from  the  Jordan,  John 
follows  him  day  by  day  into  Galilee,  and  keeps  him  at 
his  work,  during  the  express  time  when  he  is  alleged  to 
have  been  in  the  wilderness.  If,  therefore,  John's 
record  is  true,  it  is  impossible  that  this  forty  days'  fast 
and  temptation  in  the  wilderness  could  have  occurred, 
and  the  whole  matter  must  be  set  down  for  what,  even 


294  )ESUS    AND   RELIGION. 

on  its  face,  it  appears  to  be, — namely,  an  after,  and  very 
crude  attempt  to  appropriate  another  Scriptural  type. 
This,  like  all  the  other  subsequent  and  mythic  growths 
and  adaptations,  utterly  disappears  as  soon  as  it  has  been 
mentioned,  and  without  leaving  a  ripple  behind.  No 
such  fact  was  ever  afterwards  either  used  or  mentioned 
during  the  life  of  Jesus.  If  it  ever  existed,  it  was  of  no 
benefit  to  any  one,  unless  as  an  experience  to  Jesus 
personally.  At  best  it  was  but  an  unknown  and  useless 
miracle  in  the  wilderness,  which  was  never  used,  nor 
mentioned  afterwards.  One  may  be  permitted  to  re- 
mark, also,  that,  if  Jesus  did  fast  forty  days,  it  was  not 
only  a  great  feat,  but  one  much  in  conflict  with  both  his 
nature  and  habits,  and  one  which  he  amply  compensated 
himself  for  afterwards  :  for  it  was  among  the  gravest 
objections  to  Jesus,  that  neither  him  nor  his  disciples 
kept  the  usual  fasts  ;  that  they  did  not  even  wait  to  wash 
their  hands  before  eating  their  meals  ;  and  that  he  him- 
self was  a  glutton  and  wine-bibber  ;  while  Jesus,  in  an- 
swer to  the  charge  of  not  fasting,  claimed  that  he  was  a 
"  bridegroom,"  and  that  bridegroom  style  and  habits 
should  be  permitted  while  he  was  present. 

The  transfiguration  on  the  mountain  will  hereafter  be 
considered  in  its  possible  relations  to  the  actual  life  of 
Jesus.  If  it  be  not  wholly  mythic,  as  it  very  likely  is, 
the  account  of  it  is  the  result  of  an  attempt  to  mythically 
remodel  and  adapt  some  circumstance  in  the  life  of 
Jesus  in  such  a  manner  as  to  secure  another  evidence  of 
the  antitypal  relation  of  Jesus  to  Moses  by  imitating  the 
transfiguration  of  Moses  on  Sinai.  That,  however, 
which  is  wholly  fatal  to  it  as  one  of  the  divine  recogni- 
tions and  proofs  of  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus,  without 


EXAMPLES    OF   THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       2Q5 

now  going  further,  is  the  fact  that  it  was  not  only  never 
used  or  mentioned  for  any  purpose  whatever,  but  was 
expressly  required  by  Jesus  himself  to  be  kept  a  profound 
secret  until  after  his  death  !  Was  not  such  an  intentional 
attempt  to  keep  from  the  knowledge  of  the  Jews  the 
very  signs  and  evidences  which  they  required  and  had  in 
vain  sought  of  him,  both  derogatory  to  him  as  a  man, 
and  utterly  inconsistent  with  his  professed  Messiahship 
and  his  anxiety  and  efforts  to  convince  these  same  Jews  ? 
Why  intentionally  conceal  the  actual  signs  of  the  Mes- 
siah from  the  very  people  to  whom  that  Messiah  was 
sent,  and  whom  he  was  endeavoring  to  persuade  to  ac- 
cept him  ?  And  for  whom  were  such  signs  given,  if  not 
for  those  to  whom  he  was  sent  ?  The  inconsistency  is 
manifest  and  complete. 


In  even  hastily  examining,  then,  the  after  relations, 
conduct  and  declarations  of  the  persons  who  were  con- 
cerned in,  and  cognizant  of,  the  various  miraculous  ex- 
hibitions and  transactions  connected  with  the  concep- 
tion, birth,  infancy,  dedication,  baptism,  fasting  and 
transfiguration  of  Jesus,  now  put  forward  as  divine 
recognitions  of  his  Messiahship  and  divinity,  we  have 
found  that  these  subsequent  manifestations  and  effects 
show  no  traces  of  such  prior  causes  or  influences  ;  that 
they  not  only  exhibit  none  of  that  congruity  and  con- 
secution which  necessarily  and  always  exists  between 
precedent  and  subsequent  related  or  correlated  facts  and 
between  knowledge  and  motives  and  the  resulting  con- 


296  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

duct ;  and  that,  in  fact,  the  subsequent  facts  and  results 
happened,  not  as  if  their  asserted  antecedents  had 
actually  existed,  but  exactly  as  if  they  had  never  existed 
at  all.  We  are,  therefore,  presented  with  a  set  of  the 
most  wonderful  causes  and  motives  without  any  kind  of 
result  or  influence  flowing  from  them.  We  find  a  record 
filled  with  the  most  palpable  exhibitions  and  proofs  of 
God's*  recognition  of  Jesus  as  the  Christ  of  the  Jews, 
commencing  with  his  conception  and  extending  through 
all  the  more  prominent  points  of  his  life.  And  yet  we 
find  that  no  use  or  even  mention  of  them  was  ever  made 
when  Jesus  came  forward  to  press  the  very  claims  which 
they  are  claimed  to  so  fully  establish,  and  which  they 
were  intended  to  prove ;  although  every  conceivable  mo- 
tive existed  for  his  claiming  their  benefit.  If  they  ever 
existed,  they  were,  not  only  never  used,  but  all  were 
contradicted — some  expressly  and  by  Jesus  himself,  and 
all  by  the  language  and  conduct  of  those  concerned  and 
those  cognizant  of  them.  Another  very  significant  fact 
is  forced  upon  us  by  the  record  of  these  miraculous 
proofs.  Those  of  them  which  pertain  to  the  earlier  and 
wholly  unknown  period  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  where  there 
was  no  danger  of  direct  afoproof,  and  where  the  tests  of 
their  truth  and  the  detection  of  their  errors  were  far 
more  difficult  to  the  uncritical  minds  they  were  addressed 
to  than  were  those  of  a  subsequent  period,  we  find  to  be 
not  only  detailed  with  some  freedom  and  particularity, 
but  represented  as  occurring  openly  and  as  having  the 
greatest  notoriety,  sometimes  even  in  Jerusalem  and  in 
the  Temple  itself.  Not  so  with  those  which  are  asserted 
of  the  period  of  his  public  life.  Had  the  Holy  Ghost 
been  permitted  to  visibly  descend  upon  Jesus,  and  a 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND   MYTHIC. 

voice  from  heaven  to  proclaim  him  as  the  Son  of  God, 
and  the  renowned  Baptist  been  permitted  to  have  pro- 
claimed him  as  the  Christ  whose  advent  he  had  been  an- 
nouncing— and  all  in  the  presence  of  the  intelligent  Jews ; 
and  Jesus  had  permitted  the  public  to  witness  him  starve 
for  forty  days,  and  to  have  seen  Satan  carry  him  through 
the  air  on  to  a  mountain,  or  the  pinnacle  of  the  Temple, 
and  there  tempt  him  ;  and  had  then  permitted  them  to 
see  his  transfiguration  in  the  presence  of  Moses  and 
Elias  on  Calvary,  or  the  Mount  of  Olives, — then  he  never 
would  have  been  asked  for  another  "  sign  "  by  any  living 
Jew ;  while  his  defeat  and  crucifixion  would  have  been 
an  impossibility.     This  conclusion  was  too  palpable  to 
be  overlooked,  and  such  open  and  indisputable  inferences 
and  contradictions  were  to  be  avoided.     Accordingly  we 
find  the  fasting  and  temptation  represented  as  being  in  a 
"  wilderness  " — a  wilderness  which  is  not  even  named  or 
located.     It  does  not  appear  that'any  mortal  knew  of  his 
going,  staying  or  coming.     To  have  the  transfiguration, 
he  takes  his  three  most  confidential  followers,  apart  from 
the  rest,  up  into  a  high  mountain,  by  themselves,  and 
after  his  performance  he  strictly  charged  them  never  to 
speak  of  it  to  any  mortal  until  after  his   death,  which 
they  certainly  never  did.     The  scenes  at  the  Jordan  are 
not  represented  as  having  been  seen  or  known  by  any 
person  except  Jesus  and  John.     The  second  recognition 
and  declaration  of  John,  recorded  by  Luke,  was  all  that 
was  performed  before  others.     Two  of  John's  disciples 
are  said  to  have  heard  John  recognize  him  as  the  "  lamb 
of  God."     And,  What  was  the  result  of  this  single  in- 
stance of  permitting  such  things  to  be  known  ?     Upon 
this  single,  simple,  and  by  no   means    definite,  verbal 


298  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

exclamation  of  "  Behold  the  lamb  of  God,"  by  John,  both 
his  hearers  forthwith  acknowledged,  and  became  dis- 
ciples of  Jesus, — one  of  them  being  Andrew  the  Apostle. 
Does  not  this  very  scene  give  us  an  insight  into  the 
reason  for  all  these  later  miraculous  signs  being  kept  en- 
tirely secret  and  out  of  the  public  sight  ?  Now,  can  any 
one  tell  a  legitimate  motive  or  reason  why  these  later 
divine  recognitions  and  proofs, — if  they  ever  existed, — 
were  hidden  or  kept  secret  at  all  ?  and  especially  when 
the  early  ones  were  so  heralded  and  published  ?  Why 
did  they  herald  and  publish  the  first  ones  at  a  time  when 
the  people  were  not  called  upon  to  decide  upon  his 
claims ;  and  afterwards  when  the  hour  came  for  the 
people  to  actually  decide,  and  to  accept  or  reject  him  at 
the  risk  of  their  eternal  damnation,  utterly  suppress  all 
mention  of  those  early  and  forgotten  ones,  and  perform 
the  present  ones  in  a  manner  that  the  people  who  were 
to  decide  could  neither  know  nor  hear  of  them  ?  Surely 
this  is  all  very  suggestive  of  the  nature  and  origin  of 
these  stories  of  the  different  divine  recognitions  of  Jesus. 
Had  they  ever  really  existed  the  whole  course  of  conduct 
would  not  only  have  been  different,  but  would  have 
been  reversed.  The  whole  course  of  facts,  outside  of 
the  mere  uncorroborated,  bald  and  inconsistent  state- 
ments in  the  Gospels,  disproves  them.  They  had  never 
been  even  thought  of  up  to  the  time  when  Jesus  re- 
appeared after  the  crucifixion. 

If  the  matters  attempted  to  be  explained  have  been 
presented  to  the  Reader  with  even  the  smallest  portion 
of  the  clearness  with  which  they  are  presented  to  the 
mind  of  the  author,  he  will  scarcely  fail  to  concur  with 
him  in  the  belief  that  the  supernatural  evidences  of  the 


EXAMPLES    OF    THE    UNHISTORIC    AND    MYTHIC.       299 

divine  nature  and  Messiahship  of  Jesus  are  mythic 
growths  of  which  he  himself  was  wholly  ignorant ;  and 
that  sufficient  has  already  been  presented  to  show  the 
true  nature  and  value  of  Gospel  evidence,  and  to  prove 
that  they  are  not  only  merely  human  evidence,  but  that 
they  are  very  human  evidence. 


3<X>  JESUS  AND   RELIGION. 


CHAPTER  X. 

JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES. 

HAVING  briefly  reviewed,  and  formed  an  estimate  of 
some  of  the  more  palpably  mythic  narratives  in  the  Gos- 
pels, consisting  of  divine  and  miraculous  recognitions 
of  the  claims  of  Jesus  where  the  supernatural  powers 
were  exercised  by  others,  we  may  now  examine  his  own 
alleged  miraculous  performances.  With  a  view  to  a 
comprehension  of  these,  as  well  as  for  the  purpose  of 
comprehending  his  conduct  at  the  closing  scenes  of  his 
career,  we  must  here  endeavor  to  form  some  conception 
of  Jesus  himself, — in  order  that  we  may  read  the  mira- 
cles in  the  light  of  their  performer,  and  the  performer 
in  the  light  of  his  miracles. 

Many  of  those  who  have  dared  to  follow  us  thus  far 
will  be  somewhat  prepared  to  approach  these  subjects, 
and  even  to  investigate  the  personal  character  of  Jesus, 
without  being  utterly  paralyzed  by  their  superstitious 
prejudices  and  fears.  To  avoid  these  trammels  of  our 
birth  and  education,  Let  us  endeavor,  as  far  as  may  be, 
to  practically  forget  that  there  are  any  possible  conse- 
quences to  our  investigations  or  opinions,  and  to  regard 
the  facts  as  applying  to  some  other  founder  of  a  religion  ; 
reassuring  ourselves  with  the  consideration  that,  if  the 
claim  of  Jesus  is  not  true,  we  ought  not  to  believe  it, 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  3OI 

and  that,  if  it  is  true,  it  will  only  become  more  manifest 
by  being  subjected  to  all  the  tests  of  truth.  In  testing 
the  pretensions  of  any  man  to  be  considered  God,  cer- 
tainly every  law  of  evidence  and  credence  demands  that 
we  should  at  least  commence  by  treating  him  as  a  mere 
man,  and  proceed  to  subject  every  particle  of  his  evi- 
dence and  reasonings  to  the  most  thorough  scrutiny  and 
most  exacting  tests.  That  he  dares  to  threaten  us  for  a 
course  so  palpably  necessary  and  just,  should  only  make 
us  the  more  suspicious,  and  the  more  resolute  in  apply- 
ing the  strictest  tests.  Reason,  not  threats,  is  the  in- 
strument of  truth. 

Instead  of  rinding  the  evidence  we  should  naturally 
expect  had  God  really  incarnated  himself  for  the  benefit 
of  Humanity  and  made  that  benefit  dependent  upon 
men's  belief  in  that  incarnation,  we  find  only  the  unau- 
thenticated  and  mutilated  patch-work  flung  together  in 
our  Gospels,  consisting  of  the  unverified  and  uninvesti- 
gated  statements,  traditions,  inventions  and  undoubted 
forgeries  of  ignorant,  superstitious,  fanatical  and  unknown 
men  of  a  remote  time.  Either  a  consistent,  coherent  or 
consecutive  account  of  either  the  life,  ministry  or  teach- 
ings of  Jesus  is  nowhere  furnished  us.  When  we  ex- 
amine this  bundle  of  interested,  incompetent  and  incon- 
sistent testimony,  it  would  seem  to  forbid  all  attempt  at 
forming  a  conception  of  him.  Every  generation  has 
moulded  out  of  these  Gospels  a  Saviour  to  suit  them- 
selves :  the  first  generations  remodelling  or  changing  the 
traditions  and  the  very  Gospels  themselves,  while  later 
ones  have  effected  their  changes  through  ever-varying 
constructions  of  them,  and  by  writing  a  large  and  ever- 
increasing  library  of  lives  of  Christ,  every  one  of  which 


3O2  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

must  depend  for  its  facts  upon  this  same  petty  record. 
And  yet,  through  all  this  Gospel  conglomerate,  we  are 
furnished  with  constant  glimpses  of  the  reality,  and  with 
sufficient  believable  evidence  to  form,  as  I  think,  an 
approximate  conception  of  the  actual  Jesus,  although  by 
no  means  a  certain  or  complete  one.  The  very  fact,  that 
perhaps  the  larger  proportion  of  the  Gospels  was  de- 
rived, directly  or  remotely,  from  the  simple,  undigested 
and  garrulous  recitals  of  ignorant  men  and  women,  and 
was  written  down  in  the  same  inartistic,  credulous  and 
careless  manner,  has  resulted  in  sending  down  to  us,  in 
spite  of  all  the  crude  subsequent  attempts  at  amend- 
ment, many  fragmentary  facts  which  incautiously  furnish 
to  the  modern  mind  considerable  insight  into  those  early 
men  and  scenes.  That  there  was  controlling  design  in 
the  original  testimony,  and  its  subsequent  manipulation, 
is  very  apparent, — first,  to  induce  a  belief  in  Jesus  ;  and 
subsequently,  to  accommodate  the  testimony  to  special 
beliefs  in  regard  to  him  and  his  doctrines  ;  but  these 
motives  concerned  the  men  and  the  notions  of  the  time. 
Had  either  the  witnesses  or  writers  been  intending  to 
affect  remote  generations,  and  had  foreseen  the  triumph 
of  the  doctrine  of  natural  law,  and  the  modern  question- 
ing of  the  very  possibility  of  miracles,  the  Gospels  would 
have  been  far  -more  closely  pruned  with  a  view  to  rid 
them  of  such  unlucky  admissions.  Never  supposing, 
however,  that  any  mortal  could  doubt  the  fact  of  mira- 
cles, they  have  given  their  evidence  without  regard  to 
such  a  contingency.  And  to  this  fact  we  now  owe  the 
fragmentary  facts  and  casual  admissions  which  furnish 
to  the  modern  mind  the  desired  clue  to  the  real  state  of 
facts. 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  303 

The  task  of  forming  a  conception  of  the  actual  Jesus 
from  the  materials  furnished,  however,  is  by  no  means  an 
easy  or  safe  one,  even  if  his  character  was  a  less  excep- 
tional one  than  it  is.  To  discover  and  discard  the  ele- 
ments which  are  purely  mythic,  and  such  others  as  have 
been  carelessly  or  surreptitiously  added  or  changed,  as 
well  as  to  enter  into  the  spirit  of  the  original  witnesses 
and  realize  their  weaknesses,  deficiencies  and  partialities, 
and  at  the  same  time  to  detect  their  unconscious  admis- 
sions or  adverse  recitals  and  conflicts,  require  patience 
and  at  least  some  habits  of  judicial  investigation,  some 
knowledge  and  aptitude,  and  perfect  mental  freedom. 
Erudition  or  scholastic  learning  or  criticism  has  furnished 
little  or  no  aid  to  the  investigations  which  we  have  made 
on  this  subject.  We  have  earnestly  and  faithfully  ex- 
amined the  record  and  testimony  as  we  would  have  ex- 
amined it  had  it  been  presented  to  us  for  judicial  inves- 
tigation or  determination. 


In  making  this  investigation  we  have  been  governed 
by  certain  principles  or  rules  which  seem  to  be  the  plain 
dictates  of  experience  and  common  sense,  and'  to  be  spe- 
cially applicable  to  the  facts,  and  which  may  be  found  of 
service  to  the  Reader,  not  only  in  his  own  investigations, 
but  in  exhibiting  to  him  the  spirit  in  which  the  pres- 
ent one  is  made,  and  the  rules  which  have  guided  it ; 
namely : 

i.  We  may  suspect  error,  exaggeration  and  suppres- 
sion when  there  is  found  a  manifest  motive  for  them. 


304  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

2.  We  may  generally  credit  disinterested,  uncontra- 
dicted,  consistent  and  reasonable  statements. 

3.  We  should  suspect,  and  demand  proof  of  all  alle- 
gations in  proportion  to  their  improbability. 

4.  We  should  suspect  a  mythic  growth  or  subsequent 
creation  wherever  a  divine  or  miraculous  recognition  of 
Jesus  or  a  fulfilment  of  prophecy  by  him   is  proclaimed, 
and  we  may  be  stire  of  one  where  such  account  is  either 
absurd,  contradicted  or  inconsistent,  or  where  no  use  or 
recognition  of  it  was  ever  made  during  the  life  of  Jesus. 

5.  We  should  recognize  and  treat  errors,  inconsist- 
encies and  contradictions  in  the  Gospels  and  in  the  con- 
duct and  language   of  Jesus  exactly  as  we  would  treat 

'them  if  found  elsewhere,  taking  guarded  care  to  assume 
nothing  in  aid  or  apology  of  anything  on  account  of  the 
assumed  character  of  Jesus,  or  of  the  sanctity  of  the  rec- 
ord ;  but  rather  to  be  alive  to  the  probability  of  error 
and  imposition,  well  knowing  the  uniform  habit  of  relig- 
ious zealots  and  propagandists,  and  the  potent  motives 
for  both,  in  this  instance,  as  well  as  the  indisputable  fact 
of  thefr  actual  presence. 

6.  We  should  examine  and  construe  the  language  of 
the    narrators    in  reference,   not   to  our  desires,  ideas, 
knowledge  and  beliefs,  but  to  their  own  ;    remembering 
that   they 'were  ignorant,  superstitious,   interested  and 
excited  witnesses,  and  especially  bearing  in  mind  that, 
to  them,  a  miracle  was  neither  an  unnatural  or  improba- 
ble occurrence,  much  less  an  impossible  or  doubtful  one. 

7.  We  should  carefully  distinguish  between  what  is 
said  for  a  purpose  or  is   directly  calculated  to  subserve 
the  known   purposes  of  the  narrator,  and  what  is  garru- 
lously or  indifferently  related  without  purpose,  as  well 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  305 

as  between  those  direct  assertions,  as  facts,  of  what  were 
manifestly  but  matters  of  opinion,  belief,  or  "  hear-say," 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  more  legitimate  narrations  of 
personally-witnessed  facts  or  occurrences,  on  the  other 
hand ;  giving  no  more  weight  to  such  unqualified  and 
unwarranted  assertions  than  the  reports,  rumors  and  no- 
tions of  such  people  are  entitled  to,  everywhere. 

8.  We  should  reverse  our  accustomed  habit,  and  con- 
sent to  suggest  no  "  might-have-beens,"  or  possible  pos- 
sibilities in  aid  of  defective  or  irrational  and  incredible 
assertions,  nor  anything  whatever  beyond  the  necessary 
or  natural  implications  and  inferences  from  the  accred- 
ited facts  :  remembering  that  the  burden  of  proof  is  on 
those  who  assert  the  facts,  and  that  assumed  possibilities 
can   neither  be  legitimately  used  to  prove  actual  facts, 
nor  to  cover  or  gloss  defective  evidence  or  the  indicia  of 
falsehood.     In  other  words,  we  must  not  take  upon  our- 
selves the  illegitimate  burden  or  office  of  proving,  not 
only  that  other  people's  assertions  are  not  true,  or  not 
proved,  but  that  they  could  by  no  possibility-have  been 
true ;  and  then  cut  ourselves  off  from  all  chance  of  dis- 
proof, by  destroying  the  force  of  every  indicia  of  error 
by  gratuitously  assuming  all  possible  possibilities  to  aid 
or  cover  them. 

9.  In   examining  and  estimating  the  evidence  of  a 
supposed  miracle,  we  should  first  consider  whether,  on 
its   face,  the   narrative    purports  to  describe  what  we 
would  consider  a  miracle  ;    and  if  so,  then  we  should 
carefully  and  critically  review  the  recitals  of  the  same 
occurrence,  if  such  exist,  in  the  other  Gospels,  with  a 
view  to  ascertain  whether  the  agreed  or  uncontradicted 
facts,  as  recited,  necessarily  amount  to  a  real  miracle, 

20 


3O6  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

or  whether,  under  the  most  favorable  selection,  construc- 
tion and  combination  of  the  several  recitals  in  each  of 
the  Gospels,  we  may  not  fairly  conclude  or  infer  from 
their  own  testimony,  that  the  transaction  or  occurrence 
happened  in  obedience  or  conformity  to  the  methods 
and  laws-  of  natural  causation.  For  it  will  not  be  denied, 
that  he  who  asserts  a  suspension  or  reversal  of  the  laws 
of  Nature,  must  absolutely  exclude  the  possibility  of  the 
agency  of  natural  causes  or  efficiency.  Secondly  :  still 
failing  to  detect  error  or  deficiency  in  the  statement,  we 
should  turn  our  attention  to  the  probability  or  even  pos- 
sibility of  error  in  the  recitals,  whether  resulting  from 
ignorance,  inefficiency,  mistake,  false  notions,  over  con- 
fidence and  faith,  imperfect  observation  or  recital,  dis- 
tortions from  feelings  or  interests,  or  from  subsequent 
alterations  of  the  testimony  ; — taking  care  to  observe 
that  the  Gospels  habitually  state  in  a  uniform  manner, 
and  with  equal  positiveness,  not  only  matters  of  direct 
knowledge  or  observation,  but  matters  of  judgment,  in- 
formation-or  belief:  and  that  we  are  by  no  means  to 
allow  them  the  benefit  of  this  crude  and  unreliable 
habit. 

10.  If  we  shall  ultimately  find  that  a  real  miracle  has 
been  fully,  consistently,  uncontradictedly  and  unequiv- 
ocally recited,  then  we  must  first  decide, — whether  any 
statement  of  a  miracle,  however  consistent  and  complete, 
made  by  such  a  record  as  we  have  seen  this  to  be — a 
record  written  by  unknown  men,  upon  unknown  infor- 
mation as  to  the  interested  and  excited  testimony  of  such 
wholly  exceptionable  witnesses  as  were  selected  by  Jesus, 
could  possibly  satisfy  us  that  an  actual  miracle  had  been 
performed :  and  finally,  whether  any  set  of  religionists, 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  3O/ 

in  any  number,  of  liny  age,  can  be  credited  to  prove 
a  miracle  in  support  of  their  supposed  superhuman 
founder,  or  for  a  moment  satisfy  us  of  the  mutability  of 
the  law  of  causation — that  law  whose  existence  and  ab- 
solute inflexibility  are  at  once  verified  by  the  most  over- 
whelming of  all  inductions  as  well  as  by  the  most  resist- 
less of  a  priori  deduction,  and  upon  whose  absolute  un- 
changeability  depends,  as  well  the  truths  and  predictions 
necessary  to  human  life,  as  those  of  Science  itself.  And 
by  the  time  we  have  put  the  "  marvellous  works  "  of 
Jesus  through  this  ordeal  —  nay,  before  we  are  half 
through — we  shall  not  seriously  trouble  ourselves  about 
the  miracles  of  Jesus  or  any  one  else. 

ii.  Lastly,  we  should  judge  Jesus  as  a  man — as  a 
man  of  the  time,  country,  religion  and  social  class  to 
which  he  belonged — as  a  man  subject  to  the  conditions, 
influences,  errors  and  frailties  incident  to  his  humanity ; 
yet,  of  course,  subject  to  such  modifications  as  his 
peculiar  personality,  aims,  and  circumstances  may  seem 
to  require.  It  is  only  by  treating  him  thus,  that  either 
he,  or  his  life,  or  his  character  can  be  made  at  all  com- 
prehensible ; — a  proof  that  such  is  the  proper  and  only 
light  in  which  to  view  him.  By  starting  with  the  as- 
sumption of  his  Godhood,  we  find  inconsistencies  and 
mysteries  accumulate  without  end ; — a  proof  that  this 
assumption  is  gratuitous  and  unfounded.  We  know  him 
as  a  man,  let  us  treat  him  as  such.  We  do  not  know 
him  to  be  a  God,  let  us  not  dare  assume  it,  until  he  has 
proved  it — proved  it  in  a  manner  worthy  of  such  a  fact ! 


3O8  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

The  awe  and  glamour  of  sanctity  which  ages  of 
superstition  have  thrown  around  the  "  sacred  word  "  and 
the  "  divine  man,"  and  the  ideal  representations  of  the 
actors  and  scenes  narrated  in  the  Gospels,  have  com- 
pletely obliterated  the  reality,  and  have  rendered  it  a 
perilous  and  ungrateful  task  to  unmask  the  rude  and  un- 
attractive actualities.  Art  and  poetry  have  wholly  re- 
created the  facts,  forms  and  characters  of  all  that  per- 
tains to  the  Bible  narratives.  The  facts,  even  as  they 
are  represented  in  the  Scriptures,  are  wholly  disregarded, 
save  as  they  may  serve  for  a  nominal  frame-work  for  the 
ideals  of  their  portrayers.  Every  element  has  been  sub- 
limated by  human  fancy,  and  illuminated  by  human 
genius.  The  naked,  unkempt  and  soapless  savages  of 
Eden  now  stand  out  before  our  imaginations — the  one 
an  Apollo,  and  the  other  a  Venus.  Art  presents  us 
the  physically  defective  Egyptian  priest — Moses,  with 
the  muscles  of  a  Hercules  and  the  head  and  front  of  an 
Olympian  Jupiter.  The  ragged,  wild  and  filthy  prophet 
or  saint  of  the  desert  are  made,  not  unfit  representatives 
of  the  "  Ancient  of  Days."  The  rude  cross  and  ruder 
crucifixion  have  melted  into  a  myth — a  scene  for  a 
spectacular  theatre.  The  bare-footed  and  bare-headed 
fishermen  of  Galilee  stroll  through  the  country  or  gaze 
from  their  "model  yacht"  with  a  conspicuous  rim  of 
supernatural  light  encircling  their  heads — a  phenomenon 
which  would  have  driven  the  panic-stricken  multitude 
into  the  wildest  flight  at  their  approach.  The  aged  and 
wrinkled  wife  of  the  poor  carpenter  of  Nazareth  blooms 
in  perpetual  and  ideal  beauty.  The  young  carpenter, 
their  son,  appears  habitually  among  men  with  the  face 
of  an  angel,  with  a  divine  aureola  encircling  his  brows, 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  309 

and  with  an  invisible  sun  shining  behind  his  head  : — in- 
signia which  would  have  made  every  Scribe  and  Pharisee 
fall  prostrate  at  his  feet,  if  it  had  failed  to  throw  them 
into  fits.  Such  are  the  images  which  have  awed  our 
imaginations  and  moulded  our  conceptions  from  our 
childhood.  And  yet  these  are  neither  truthful  nor 
scriptural  representations.  They  are  purely  ideal,  and 
flow  from  the  common  fountain  of  all  myths.  Men  have 
been  trying  to  make  Jesus  what  they  think  he  ought  to 
have  been — to  clothe  him  with  his  assumed  divine  per- 
sonality and  character,  and  to  satisfy  their  own  growing 
ideals  and  aspirations,  in  him.  The  same  impulses  and 
purposes  have  found  constant  outlet  and  satisfaction  in 
more  prosaic  forms — in  remoulding  the  doctrines,  char- 
acter and  life  of  Jesus.  The  ever-changing  and  ever 
increasing  demands  intellectual,  religious  and  moral 
development,  have  found  vent  in  some  thousand  new 
sects,  heresies  and  schisms,  based  upon  new  interpreta- 
tions ;  as  well  as  in  a  constant  series  of  new  Lives  of 
Jesus  or  Lives  of  Christ.  The  more  rapidly  men  have 
developed,  the  more  constant  and  imperious  have  been 
the  demands  for  these  re-constructions  of  Jesus  and  his 
doctrines ;  until,  of  "  lives  "  alone,  we  have  between 
fifteen  hundred  and  two  thousand,  without  apparent  hope 
of  abatement  in  the  supply  or  demand;  while,  were  we 
to  add  the  pamphlet  and  pulpit  variations,  the  number 
would  be  incalculable.  So  rapid  and  signal  have  the  re- 
cent changes  been,  that  the  Jesus  and  Christianity  of  to- 
day are  not  at  all  the  Jesus  and  Christianity  even  of  our 
own  youth.  Still,  men  continue  to  stretch  and  warp  and 
cramp  and  mould  into  the  desired  shape  that  singular 
conglomerate  of  Gospel  materials.  Jesus  has  become 


3IO  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

the  inherited  symbol  of  men's  religious  ideals  and  hopes, 
and  must  be  made  to  continue  to  symbolize  them, 
through  all  changes,  and  to  furnish  soul-clothing  for 
each  generation,  until  the  cloth  has  become  too  thread- 
bare to  be  re-stitched.  That  the  truth  should  not  have 
been  approximated  until  recently,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered 
at ;  since  the  object  was  not  to  ascertain  who  and  what 
Jesus  was,  but  to  establish  the  existence  of  the  desired 
Christ.  Nor,  as  we  have  said,  was  there  a  possibility  of 
approaching  a  solution  of  that  supposed  mystery  involved 
in  the  Gospel  narratives,  which  Mr.  Beecher  now  con- 
fesses to  be  insoluble,  while  they  thus  attempted  to  read 
in  them  the  life,  character  and  teachings  of  a  God. 
Until  we  can  divest  ourselves  of  our  ideal  Jesus  and  of 
his  ideal  followers,  purposes  and  surroundings,  and  cease 
this  effort  to  force  the  conduct,  character,  ideas  and  life 
of  a  man  into  the  moulds  of  those  of  a  God,  the  endless 
riddle  must  remain  unread.-  Even  freed  from  these  fatal 
obstructions,  neither  the  record,  nor  Jesus  is  easily  com- 
prehended. The  man  was  not  understood  by  his  own 
personal  followers,  and,  were  he  now  living,  he  would  be 
equally  incomprehensible  to  the  same  class  of  minds ; 
while  it  would  only  be  to  the  few,  of  any  class,  that  he 
would  be  at  all  understood,  and  then  only  by  professional 
skill  or  through  psychical  and  pathological  sympathies. 

Recently,  there  certainly  have  been  approximations 
towards  a  true  conception  of  Jesus  and  the  Gospels. 
Strauss  has  exposed  the  true  nature  of  the  origin  and  the 
true  character  of  the  most  striking  parts  of  the  Gospel 
narratives.  M.  Renan  has  had  the  courage  to  strike  the 
key-note  to  the  singularity  and  mystery  in  the  character 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  311 

of  Jesus.  Mr.  Beecher  has  dared  to  think  of  him,  in  his 
humanity,  in  a  manner  that  is  largely  true,  and  still  more 
largely  suggestive  of  the  truth.  That  he  failed  to  see 
farther  was  clearly  owing  to  the  fact  that,  to  see  more 
was  to  see  too  much. 


HIS     UNRECORDED     LIFE. 

The  entire  early  history  of  Jesus  is  unknown,  with 
the  exception,  perhaps,  of  the  characteristic  scene  of 
his  truancy  at  fourteen.  That  his  family  resided  at 
Nazareth  is  sufficiently  certain.  That  they  had  ever 
resided  elsewhere  was  never  hinted  during  his  lifetime. 
His  neighbors  of  Nazareth  treated  him  as  one  reared 
among  them.  He  was,  as  we  have  seen,  tauntingly 
questioned  as  to  his  being  a  Samaritan.  Under  this 
charge,  he  not  only  remained  suspiciously  silent,  but 
there  are  a  number  of  facts  which  could  fairly  be  cited  as 
evidencing  more  than  ordinary  Jewish  relations,  on  his 
part,  with  that  despised  people.  Taking  the  whole  rec- 
ord, we  have,  however,  no  sufficient  warrant  for  con- 
sidering him  other  than  a  Nazarene. 

There  are  certain  obscure  hints  and  possible  infer- 


312  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

ences  to  be  drawn  from  the  conduct  and  language  both 
of  himself  and  others,  which  might  suggest  a  query  as  to 
his  parentage,  but  reflection  would  only  return  us  to 
where  we  are  alone  authorized  to  start, — namely :  that 
he  was  the  legitimate  offspring  of  Joseph  and  Mary. 
His  neighbors  expressly  claim  that  he  was  the  son  of 
Joseph.  His  disciples,  during  his  life,  expressly  called 
him  the  son  of  Joseph.  His  mother  expressly  called 
Joseph  his  father,  while  Jesus  not  only  acquiesced  by 
his  silent  acceptance  of  it,  but,  in  direct  connection  and 
reply,  speaks  of  God,  not  as  his  father,  but  as  his 
"master."  Whatever  suggestions  may  arise  from  the 
Gospel  narratives,  we  are  only  authorized  to  consider 
Jesus  as  the  offspring  of  Joseph  and  his  wife,  in  due 
course  of  law  and  nature. 

Of  the  early  life  of  Jesus,  Mr.  Beecher,  in  his  Life  of 
Jesus  the  Christ,  says — "We  are  to  remember  that, 
whatever  view  of  the  mystery  be  taken,  there  will  be 
difficulties  which  no  ingenuity  can  solve."  This  is  quite 
true  from  Mr.  Beecher's  stand-point  and  method.  Treat 
Jesus  for  what  he  is  claimed  to  be,  and  the  difficulties 
and  mysteries  which  surround  him  are  indeed  insoluble. 
Treat  him,  however,  for  what  he  was,  and  there  is  no 
mystery  to  solve.  Did  Mr.  Beecher  fail  to  perceive  the 
fatal  effect  of  his  admission — fail  to  perceive  that  such 
difficulties  in  interpreting  the  facts  upon  the  orthodox 
hypothesis  as  to  the  nature  and  character  of  Jesus,  either 
argues  a  defective  record  or  a  defective  hypothesis  ? 
Or,  can  Mr.  Beecher  conceive  that  God  would  have 
placed  man's  eternal  destiny  at  stake  upon  his  belief  in, 
and  acceptance  of,  a  scheme  of  salvation  based  upon  a 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  313 

character  and  record  which  "  no  ingenuity  "  could  com- 
prehend ?  Would  he  not  have  had  both  the  desire  and 
the  power  to  have  made  it  comprehensible  ? 

Touching  the  youth  of  Jesus,  Mr.  Beecher  continues 
— "  There  was  nothing  that  we  know  of,  to  distinguish 
this  child  from  any  other  that  ever  was  born.  *  *  If 
we  had  dwelt  at  Nazareth  and  daily  seen  the  child  Jesus, 
we  should  have  seen  the  cradle  life  of-  other  children. 
This  child  was  no  prodigy.  *  *  If  this  was  a  divine 
person  it  was  a  divine  child,  and  childhood  meant  latent 
power,  undeveloped  faculty,  unripe  organs,  a  being  with- 
out habits,  without  character,  without  experience,  a  cluster 
of  germs,  a  branch  full  of  unblossomed  buds,  a  mere  seed 
of  manhood.  There  are  certain  genuine  experi- 

ences which  must  have  befallen  Jesus,  because  they  be-, 
long  to  human  life.  He  was  a  child.  He  was  subject 
to  parental  authority.  He  lived  among  citizens  and 
laws.  He  ate,  drank,  labored,  was  weary,  refreshed  him- 
self with  sleep.  He  mingled  among  men,  transacted 
affairs  with  them,  and  exchanged  daily  salutations.  He 
was  pleased  or  displeased  ;  he  was  glad  often  and  often 
sorrowful.  He  was  subject  to  the  oscillations  of  mood 
which  belong  to  finely  organized  persons.  There  must 
have  been  manifestations  of  filial  love.  [Mr.  Beecher 
dared  not  say  the  Gospels  exhibited  such.]  *  *  There 
is  no  evidence  that  he  was  thought  remarkable  by  his 
fellow-citizens.  On  the  other  hand,  none  were  less  pre- 
pared to  see  him  take  a  prominent  part  in  public  affairs 
than  the  very  people  who  had  known  him  from  his 
infancy.  *  *  He  was  the  '  Son  of  man  ' — a  real  boy, 
as  afterwards  a  most  manly  man.  He  knew  every  step 


314  JESUS    AND    RELIGION 

of  growth  ;  'he  underwent  the  babe's  experience  of  know- 
ing nothing,  the  child's  of  knowing  little,  the  universal 
necessity  of  development.  *  *  The  common  people 
heard  him  gladly.  He  had  sprung  from  among  them. 
He  had  been  reared  in  their  pursuits  and  habits.  For 
thirty  years  he  was  a  man  among  men,  a  laboring  man 
among  laboring  men.  *  *  Who  imagines  the  boy 
Jesus  going  or  coming  at  command — leaving  home,  with 
his  tools,  for  his  daily  work, — lifting  timber,  laying  the 
line,  subscribing  the  pattern,  fitting  and  finishing  the 
job — bargaining  for  work,  demanding  and  receiving 
his  wages — conversing  with  fellow-workmen,  and  min- 
gling in  their  innocent  amusements  ?  Yet  must  not  all 
these  things  have  been  ?  We  must  carry  along  with  us 
that  interpreting  sentence  which  like  a  refrain  should 
come  in  with  every  strain  : — '  In  all  things  it  behooved 
him  to  be  made  like  unto  his  brethren.'  "  Thus  much 
of  Mr.  Beecher's  conception : — a  very  frank  one  for  a 
Christian. 


From  his  whole  language  and  teaching,  as  well  as 
from  the  total  absence  of  the  slightest  indications  of  a 
superior  education,  and  the  fact  that  he  is  spoken  of  in 
the  Scriptures  as  illiterate,  we  are  driven  to  infer  that  his 
general  knowledge  was  limited  to  such  as  might  well  have 
been  acquired  by  any  capable  mechanic  under  conditions 
and  opportunities  which  may  be  readily  and  fairly  sug- 
gested and  imagined  of  himself.  Outside  of  his  moral 
and  religious  ideas,  and,  perhaps,  a  knowledge  of  certain 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  315 

specific  arts  and  facts,  he  seems  to  have  merely  had  the 
general  ideas  and  knowledge  of  the  class  to  which  he 
belonged,  and  those  were  certainly  very  crude,  primitive 
and  limited.  He  gave  us  no  new  conceptions  of  this 
World  or  of  heaven  or  hell.  He  believed  that  the  world 
was  swarming  with  personal  devils,  who  often  took  pos- 
session of  the  bodies  of  persons,  and  usurped  control  over 
them  ;  and  that  he  had  the  power  to  master  and  cast  out 
these  devils,  and  regarded  it  as  one  of  his  choicest  super- 
natural gifts,  and  the  source  of  a  large  portion  of  his 
most  telling  miracles,  sometimes  ordering  them  out  by 
thousands  from  a  single  person.  The  Gospels  nowhere 
deny  or  question  any  of  these  old  fetichistic  notions,  but 
continue  to  accept  the  reality  of  magic  and  witchcraft 
and  the  significance  of  dreams,  as  well  as  this  notion  of 
devils  and  devil-possession.  While,  however,  his  general 
ideas  were  those  of  his  class,  we  must  neither  assume 
that  he  was  also  their  equal  in  capacity,  nor  forget  that, 
as  a  migratory  craftsman,  he  may  be  supposed  to  have 
had  opportunities  for  gathering  up  almost  any  known 
secrets  or  arts  in  his  visits  to  Jerusalem  and  the  cities  of 
Syria  and  Galilee,  where  he  had  opportunities  for  meet- 
ing both  Jews  and  Gentiles  from  almost  all  lands. 


His  religious  notions,  in  their  general  frame-work, 
corresponded  with  those  of  his  time  and  country.  On 
the  subjects  of  a  special  day  of  judgment,  the  existence 
of  a  hell,  devils  and  Satan,  a  future  life,  and  the  res- 
urrection of  the  body,  he  seems  to  have  accepted  the 


316  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

popular  notions  of  the  Pharisees.  He  nominally  ac- 
cepted the  Mosaic  laws,  but  he  paid  little  regard  to  their 
mere  literal  or  formal  requirements,  and  seems  never  to 
have  permitted  them  to  interfere  either  with  his  wishes 
or  purposes  ;  and,  when  attacked  for  breaches  of  them, 
he  managed  them  as  his  subsequent  followers  have  his 
own  —  that  is,  interpreted  them  to  suit  himself.  He 
cared  more  for  the  spirit  of  right  than  for  the  forms  of 
law,  and  declared  that  to  love  God  and  your  neighbor 
embraced  the  whole  law  and  the  prophets.  He  regarded 
the  old  law  as  good  in  its  time,  but  as  having  allowed 
many  things  to  the  people  on  account  of  the  "  hardness 
of  their  hearts,"  and  contended  that  the  new  state  of 
things  demanded  a  higher  moral  standard  and  require- 
ments— that,  while  it  was  proper  to  give  milk  to  babes, 
it  was  necessary  to  give  meat  to  men.  It  is  not  pro- 
posed, however,  to  attempt  an  exposition  of  his  theologi- 
cal views,  further  than  they  may  specially  serve  to 
illustrate  his  character  or  conduct. 


His  moral  notions  and  precepts  were  certainly  admi- 
rable, and  in  advance  of  those  of  the  Jewish  Scriptures. 
But  they  were  neither  superhuman  nor  new ;  for  every 
feature  of  them  had  been  considered  and  discussed  long 
before  he  was  born.  Nor  can  it  be  justly  claimed  that 
they  were  theoretically  perfect,  or  that  he  was,  person- 
ally, a  perfect  exemplar  of  them.  For,  we  shall  find  the 
scripture  quoted  so  approvingly  by  Mr.  Beecher  fully 
exemplified  by  him.  If  it  behooved  him  "  in  all  things  " 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  317 

to  be  made  "like  unto  his  brethren,"  he  must  neces- 
sarily have  been  subject  to  human  errors  and  frailties, 
which  his  life  amply  proves  him  to  have  been.  The 
subsequent  declaration  of  his  worshippers  that,  although 
tempted  in  all  things  like  ourselves,  yet  he  was  "  with- 
out sin,"  is  clearly  an  after-adulation,  which  is  not  only 
in  direct  conflict  with  this  declaration  of  his  complete 
similitude,  in  all  things,  to  his  brethren,  but  is  in 
direct  conflict  with  the  express  declaration  of  Jesus 
himself,  who,  upon  being  addressed  as  "good  master," 
frankly  and  promptly  rebuked  the  woman  by  replying — 
"  Why  callest  thou  me  good  ?  There  is  none  good  but 
God."  Had  his  life  and  conduct,  indeed,  for  thirty 
years,  been  absolutely  without  sin  or  error — absolutely 
perfect,  as  was  long  afterwards  claimed,  it  would  have 
been  quite  impossible  for  his  own  family  and  old  neigh- 
bors to  have  treated  either  him  or  his  pretensions  in  the 
manner  they  did.  A  thoroughly  tempted,  and  yet  abso- 
lutely sinless  man  of  thirty  years  of  age,  is  a  far  greater 
marvel  and  a  far  higher  evidence  of  direct  divine  aid  and 
support  than  any  miracle  ever  claimed  to  have  been  per- 
formed by  Jesus,  and  one  which  must,  at  once,  have 
been  recognized  by  all  as  powerfully  corroborating  his 
pretensions.  It  was  the  very  lack  of  any  such  peculiar- 
ities in  his  past  history  which  rendered  his  old  neighbors 
so  indignant  at  his  subsequent  extraordinary  preten- 
sions. We  shall  find  quite  sufficient  evidence  in  the  re- 
corded life  and  conduct  of  Jesus  to  prove  the  truth  of 
his  own  declaration  that  it  was  not  him,  but  God  alone, 
that  was  good  or  perfect. 


318  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

What  concerns  us  much  more  than  his  religious 
notions  or  his  moral  precepts,  are  his  social  and  political 
sympathies,  notions  and  purposes.  That  he  was  pos- 
sessed of  a  religious  nature  and  of  exalted  religious  aspi- 
rations is  quite  true.  That  he  was  a  Jew,  seeking  to 
agitate  and  control  Jews,  under  a  claim  of  being  their 
Messiah,  rendered  it  a  matter  of  necessity,  also,  that  he 
should  have  advanced  his  purposes,  if  at  all,  by  means 
of  the  religious  sentiments  and  aspirations  of  the  people. 
For,  with  the  Jew,  politics  and  religion  were  not  only 
inseparable,  but  were  identified.  His  politics  and  social 
philosophy  were  a  part  of  his  religion.  The  political 
element  in  his  religion,  however,  will  be  found  to  have 
dominated  and  controlled  the  public  life  and  efforts  of 
Jesus,  and  to  furnish  us  the  true  explanation  of  his  mo- 
tives and  course  of  conduct.  The  disastrous  result  of 
his  political  efforts  has  driven  his  followers  to  ignore  or 
explain  away  the  plain  facts  and  purposes  of  his  public 
life  and  efforts,  but  they  still  stand  indelibly  stamped 
upon  the  pages  of  the  Gospels.  The  peculiarities  which 
distinguished  and  controlled  Jesus  and  his  destiny  were 
neither  his  religious  nor  his  moral  views,  since  they 
were  neither  singular  nor  new ;  but  they  were  to  be 
found  in  his  social  and  political  views  and  purposes,  and 
in  his  own  self-estimate  and  his  mental  conformation 
and  condition.  The  plain  Gospel  facts  are :  that  Jesus 
had  been  seduced  into  definite  political  aims,  and  bent 
all  his  powers  and  energies  to  their  attainment  ;  that  he 
had  special  and  extreme  radical  notions  on  social  and 
economic  questions,  and  both  preached  and  practised 
them; 'and  that  these  aims  and  views  were  the  main- 
spring of  his  course  and  conduct,  and  can  alone  explain 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.          319 

them.  We  shall  find  that,  from  the  time  it  entered  into 
his  mind  to  claim  the  Messiahship,  he  used  every  effort 
of  which  he  was  capable  to  become  King  of  the  Jews,  as 
the  Messiah  was  expected  to  be  ;  and  that  he  prosecuted 
this  design  up  to  the  point  of  his  having  himself  publicly 
proclaimed  king,  and  of  making  a  kind  of  royal  and 
triumphant  entry  into  Jerusalem,  for  which  he  was  con- 
demned and  executed  :  all  of  which  we  shall  more  clearly 
perceive  as  we  advance.  It  behooves  us,  then,  to  en- 
deavor to  comprehend  his  social  and  political  views  in 
our  effort  to  interpret  the  man  and  his  motives  and 
conduct. 

Jesus  had  been  born  to  poverty  and  labor.  Even 
during  his  known  manhood  he  lived  upon  the  labor  and 
charity  of  others,  and  seemed  to  exult  in  proclaiming 
himself  utterly  homeless  and  poverty-stricken.  He  had 
personally  felt,  all  his  life,  the  privations,  sufferings  and 
sorrows  of  the  poor,  as  well  as  the  insolences  and  op- 
pressions of  the  wealthier  and  ruling  classes.  He  had 
witnessed  the  hypocritical  self  and  Mammon-worshippers 
grinding  the  faces  of  the  poor,  under  their  pharisaical 
garb  of  righteousness,  as  they  now  do.  And,  amid 
these  associations  and  experiences  of  the  poor,  he  not 
only  imbibed  the  ideas  and  prejudices  of  the  poor,  but  he 
lent  to  them  the  force  of  his  higher  capacities,  and  the 
intensity  of  his  more  exquisite  sensibilities.  Pie  lent  to 
them  still  more : — the  desire  and  purpose  of  redress  and 
retribution.  With  the  mass  of  his  fellow-sufferers,  their 
wrongs  were  only  a  subject  of  fretful  or  sullen  discon- 
tent. Not  so  with  Jesus.  He  had  the  elements  of  the 
Reformer  and  the  Revolutionist  too  strongly  developed 


32O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

in  his  nature  to  permit  of  patient  submission  to  oppres- 
sion and  degradation.  His  spirit  was  not  one  of  'sub- 
mission, but  of  resistance  and  domination. 

The  socialistic  notions  of  Jesus  were  very  pronounced 
and  fixed.  They  could  not  change  without  a  change  in 
the  man,  since  they  were  the  outflow  of  his  emotions 
and  sympathies,  rather  than  the  speculations  of  a  Philos- 
opher or  the  conclusions  of  a  statesman.  His  desires 
and  repugnances  were  the  measure  of  his  hopes  and 
aspirations,  and  he  had  neither  the  philosophic  insight 
nor  the  practical  experience  to  perceive  their  impracti- 
cability. He  did  not  reason  :  he  felt.  He  was  aflame 
with  sympathy  for  the  down-trodden  poor ;  while  he 
•burned  with  indignation  and  hatred  of  their  oppressors. 
Neither  his  sympathies  nor  his  repugnances  were  of 
closet  growth,  but  were  fiery  realities,  born  and  nur- 
tured from  his  own  experiences  and  observations.  His 
over-sensitive  nature  had  been  goaded,  not  only  into  a 
spirit  of  resistance  and  reform,  but  into  a  spirit  of  dom- 
ination and  retribution.  His  sympathies  had  not  been 
enlisted  for  Lazarus,  but  he  could,  with  exultation,  send 
Dives  to  Hell.  No  radical  reformer  has  ever  shown 
himself  more  bitterly  antipathetic  and  denunciatory  of 
the  "  upper  classes  "  than  Jesus.  His  bitterness  never 
ceased  to  flow  upon  them,  like  a  river  of  wormwood  and 
gall.  He  hated  self-righteousness  and  social  distinc- 
tions worse  than  political  slavery.  He  'repeatedly  and 
serially  denounced  every  class  of  the.  Jewish  people,  save 
the  simple  and  credulous  poor  who  believed  in  him,  and 
to  whom  he  awarded  the  inheritance  of  the  earth  and 
the  smiles  of  God.  To  the  meek,  humble  and  suffering 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  321 

he  distributed  celestial  joys  with  a  free  hand:  for  the 
rich  he  had  the  assurance  that  it  was  as  impossible  for 
them  to  get  to  Heaven  as  it  was  for-  a  camel  to  go 
through  the  eye  of  a  needle : — an  ordeal  which  his 
present  disciples  seem  even  anxious  to  brave.  He 
neither  proposed  to  level  downwards  nor  upwards.  On 
the  contrary,  he  uniformly  proposed,  not  merely  to 
destroy  distinctions,  but  to  reverse  conditions — to  exalt 
and  reward  the  poor  and  lowly,  and  to  humiliate,  subor- 
dinate and  punish  the  higher  and  wealthier  classes. 
But,  while  he  was  no  "  Leveller,"  as  between  the  op- 
pressing and  oppressed  classes,  he  both  taught  and  car- 
ried into  practice  a  system  of  personal  equality  and 
socialism  among  that  humble  class  who  were  to  "  inherit 
the  Earth."  Among  his  followers  he  practically  adopted 
his  doctrine  of  personal  fraternity  and  of  a  community 
of  goods  :  keeping  all  things  in  common,  and  having  a 
common  purse.  And  to  rebuke  and  impress  his  more 
ambitious  disciples,  he  declared  that  he  who  would  be 
first  should  be  last,  and  he  who  would  rule  should  serve, 
and  set  them  an  example  of  humility  by  washing  all  of 
his  disciples'  feet.  The  only  wealthy  man  who  openly 
offered  to  follow  Jesus  was  driven  from  his  purpose  by 
this  demand  to  distribute  his  property  among  the  poor. 
The  Jewish  and  Galilean  disciples  of  Jesus  continued  to 
follow  his  precepts  and  example,  after  his  resurrection, 
and  kept  all  things  in  common.  And,  so  heinous  was 
deemed  the  offence  of  evading  an  entire  surrender  of 
their  property  into  the  common  fund,  that  it  was  re- 
ported and  believed  that  Ananias  and  Sapphira  were 
stricken  dead- for  secreting  a  part  of  their  own  estate. 
That  this  was  both  the.  doctrine  and  practice  of  Jesus 

21 


322  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

and  of  his  Jewish  and  Galilean  followers  is  not  to  be 
questioned. 

Both  his  conduct  and  teachings  gave  evidence  of  still 
more  striking  and  visionary  notions  of  property  and 
labor.  He  constantly  endeavored  to  inspire  a  contempt 
for  property,  and  denounced  the  labor,  care  and  provi- 
dence which  secured  it.  He  urged  his  followers  to  have 
no  care  for  the  things  of  this  world,  but  to  trust  in  prov- 
idence and  let  every  day  provide  for  itself ;  illustrating 
his  views  by  the  birds  of  the  air,  which  were  provided  for, 
and  by  the  lillies  of  the  field,  which  were  more  gorgeous- 
ly arrayed  than  Solomon,  although  they  neither  toiled 
nor  spun.  When  he  sent  his  disciples  abroad  over  Palestine 
to  arouse  the  people  in  his  behalf,  he  instructed  them  to 
take  neither  purse  nor  scrip,  but  to  depend  upon 
providence  and  charity.  He  rebuked  Martha  of  Bethany 
for  her  anxious  labor  and  care  about  her  household 
affairs,  telling  her  to  expend  no  care  on  such  things,  but 
rather  to  choose  the  "good  part"  adopted  by  her  sister 
Mary  : — Mary  being  then  engaged  in  idly  anointing  his 
own  feet  with  precious  ointment,  leaving  her  sister  to  do 
all  the  work.  John  the  Baptist  had  said — "  He  that  hath 
two  coats  let  him  impart  to  him  that  hath  none  :  "  Jesus 
went  further,  and  declared  that,  if  a  man  ask  you  for 
your  coat,  you  should  "  give  him  your  cloak  also."  All 
of  this  is  now  complacently  ignored  by  his  rich  and  self- 
satisfied  worshippers,  but  the  doctrines  of  Jesus  on  the 
subjects  of  property  and  labor  cannot  be  misconstrued 
without  perversity  or  stupidity.  For  no  facts  are 
more  prominently  or  explicitly  set  forth  in  the  New 
Testament. 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  323 

But,  How  could  a  divine  or  perfect  being  proclaim 
such  utterly  impracticable  doctrines  ?  That  is  a  question 
for  his  worshippers  to  answer — a  question,  however,  which 
they  will  find  it  impossible  to  answer  upon  their  assump- 
tion of  the  divinity  of  Jesus.  They  dare  not  defend  the 
doctrines  as  they  were  plainly  and  unequivocally  main- 
tained and  practised  by  him  and  his  followers :  What, 
then,  will  they  do  ?  Will  they  estimate  the  man  by  his 
principles  ai  J  his  acts,  or  will  they  force  the  facts  to  fit 
the  mould  of  their  assumed  character  ?  Reason  would 
not  hesitate  a  moment  for  an  answer.  But,  Has  Reason 
anything  to  do  with  it  ?  Reason  asserts  that  these  and 
the  like  facts  are  the  means,  and  the  only  means,  of 
judging  and  testing  his  character  and  infallibility. 


A  naked  and  unexplained  presentation  of  these  views 
would  do  injustice  to  the  rationality  of  Jesus — would 
make  the  matter  too  visionary  even  for  the  extreme  and 
sanguine  reformer  of  Nazareth.  To  award  him  the 
proper  justice  we  must  take  them  in  connection  with  his 
other  views  which  affected  them.  He  had  lived  in  an 
age  of  great  spiritual  exaltation  and  expectancy.  He 
had  witnessed,  and  felt  the  influence  of  the  general  and 
passionate  longing  for,  and  feverish  expectancy  of,  the 
advent  of  that  Messiah  whose  God-secured  triumph  was 
to  rend  the  shackles  of  the  Jew  and  inaugurate  the 
"Kingdom  of  God."  The  stern  prophet  frpin  the 
desert  had  announced  that  its  advent  was  imminent,  and 
had  baptised  and  purified  the  people  to  receive  it.  Jesus 


324  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

was  not  only  inspired  by  the  spirit  of  the  time,  but 
became  wholly  absorbed  by  it,  and  endeavored  to  realize 
it  in  his  own  person.  In  him,  the  national  craving  and 
delusion  found  their  extremest  and  most  practical  ex- 
pression. Like  John,  and  perhaps  inspired  by  him,  he 
commenced  his  ministry  by  proclaiming  that  the 
"  Kingdom  of  God  "  was  at  hand,  and  announcing  the 
religious  and  social  doctrines  and  conditions  which  he 
supposed  would  prevail  under  the  new  and  divine  regime, 
His  zeal  and  radicalism  were  more  fiery  and  pronounced 
than  even  those  of  the  impassioned  ascetic  from  the 
desert.  He  regarded  the  old  order  of  things  as  rotten 
to  the  core,  and  imagined  that  they  were  on  the  eve  of 
giving  way  before  the  coming  "  Kingdom  of  God,"  in 
which  oppression  would  receive  a  righteous  retribution, 
and  the  suffering  and  oppressed  would  find  rest  and  a 
divine  abundance.  This  new  order  of  things  was  to  be 
momentarily  expected  :  Why,  then,  labor  and  toil  for 
the  future,  or  worry  about  the  needs  of  the  old  regime? 
No  unbiased  mind  can  carefully  and  fearlessly  read  the 
Gospels,  with  this  rendering  of  the  facts  in  view,  without 
finally  conceding  that  it  is  the  true  one.  It  is  manifest, 
then,  that  we  must  account  for  the  otherwise  absurdly 
visionary  doctrines  of  Jesus  about  labor,  property  and 
worldly  prudence,  by  these  other  and  still  more  visionary 
notions  about  the  immediate  coming  of  the  "  Kingdom 
of  God,"  when  these  economic  labors  and  cares  would  no 
longer  be  needed  and  God's  favored  ones  would  bloom 
like  the  "  lilies  of  the  field."  We  are  not,  however,  to 
always  expect  even  this  much  consistency  in  the  notions 
or  conduct  of  this  excitable  and  impassioned  young  re- 
former. His  views  and  conduct  were  progressively 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  325 

developed  and  modified  as  he  advanced,  and  were  largely 
controlled  by  his  varying  conditions  and  prospects  and 
still  more  by  the  varying  state  of  his  own  mind,  which 
we  shall  see  rapidly  assuming  even  opposite  moods  and 
exhibiting  the  most  startling  changes. 


That,  however,  which  more  than  all  else  separated 
Jesus  from  his  fellows  and  shaped  both  his  ideas  and 
conduct,  remains  to  be  considered.  Mr.  Beecher  tells 
us  that  he  was  '-'subject  to  the  oscillations  of  mood 
which  belong  to  finely  organized  persons."  This  is  a 
very  mild  way  of  hinting,  or  rather  apologizing  for  the 
real  facts.  This  may  have  answered  to  characterize  the 
primitive  mental  habits  and  condition  of  Jesus,  and,  as 
such,  it  would  indicate  a  nature  peculiarly  subject  to  be 
driven  into  his  actual  condition  in  after  years ;  but  Mr. 
Beecher  certainly  falls  very  far  short  of  expressing  that 
over-wrought  sensibility  and  morbid  emotional  state 
which  gave  shape  to  the  visionary  hopes  and  ideas  of 
Jesus  during  his  public  career,  and  resulted  in  that 
supreme  •  self-consciousness  and  that  hungering  after 
love  and  adulation  which  made  him  strive  to  make  him- 
self all-and-all  to  his  followers,  the  fountain  of  life  and 
beneficence  to  those  who  would  only  believe  in  him,  and 
the  Messiah  of  Israel.  Nor  does  he  express  those  ex- 
treme and  frequent  oscillations,  or  rather  reversals  of 
mood,  often  upon  the  most  frivolous  occasions,  which  his 
•known  life  so  clearly  exhibits.  Mr.  Beecher  gives  us 


326  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

merely  the  germs  and  predisposing  nature  leading  to  the 
striking  super-exaltation  of  nervous  and  emotional  action 
which  was  so  plainly  manifested  in  after  scenes,  and 
which  so  promptly  arrested  his  early  triumphs  and 
operated  so  disastrously  upon  his  after  fortunes. 

Already,  at  Cana  of  Galilee,  we  have  witnessed  a 
moodiness  of  temper,  a  mysteriousness  of  speech  and 
manner,  a  causeless  and  abrupt  rebuking  of  his  mother, 
and  an  uncomplaining  forbearance  on  the  part  of  the 
mother,  which,  in  connection  with  her  after  conduct, 
leave  no  room  to  doubt  that  the  mother  was  not  then 
taking  her  first  lesson  in  forbearance,  or  having  her  first 
experience  of  that  morbid  mental  state  which  was  so 
soon  to  cause  her  to  be  openly  repudiated,  and  to  compel 
her  to  endeavor  to  restrain  her  son  as  one  "beside  him- 
self." This  was  probably  only  one  among  the  many 
premonitions  of  those  sudden,  and  often  unaccountable 
fits  of  exaltation  and  depression  to  which  he  became 
subject.  The  Gospels  show,  that  his  mental  action,  his 
affections,  his  moods,  his  opinions  and  his  actions  were 
all  extreme,  and  that  his  transitions  from  one  extreme 
mood  to  another  were  frequent  and  striking.  He  loved 
those  who  believed  in  him,  and  yet  he  domineered  over 
them  in  the  rudest  manner, — often  silencing  them  with 
apparently  uncalled-for  rebuke.  He  often  cursed  and 
sometimes  wept  over  his  failures,  and  consigned,  with  a 
single  curse,  a  whole  catalogue  of  cities,  in  which  he  had 
chiefly  labored,  to  perdition  for  refusing  to  believe  in 
him.  One  moment  he  would  invite  followers  by  declar- 
ing that  his  "  yoke  was  easy  and  his  burden  light : " 
at  another  he  was  declaring  the  utter  privation  and 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  327 

humiliation  of  his  own  condition  and  that  he  was  a  man 
of  sorrow  and  acquainted  with  grief,  or  describing  the 
persecutions  and  sufferings  which  awaited  his  followers. 
Now  we  hear  him  pronouncing  blessings  on  the  peace- 
makers, and  anon  we  hear  him  declaring  that  he  himself 
came,  not  to  bring  peace  into  the  world,  but  a  sword, 
and  to  breed  contentions  and  discord  even  between  the 
nearest  relatives.  With  one  breath  he  tells  us  to  love 
our  enemies ;  with  another  he  is  heaping  curses,  worm- 
wood and  gall  upon  the  heads  of  his  own  enemies  ;  and 
with  still  another,  declaring  that  he  had  refused  or 
ceased  to  even  prfiy  for  the  world,  and  prayed  only  for 
his  immediate  followers — (John  xvii.  9).  These  violent 
extremes  were  oftenest  aroused  by  fear,  by  opposition  or 
by  public  discussion.  When  excited  by  long  speaking 
his  extremes  knew  no  bounds.  Under  such  excitements 
he  would  declare,  that  God  was  in  him,  and  he  was  in 
his  disciples,  and  that  his  disciples  were,  at  the  same  time, 
in  him,  while  he  himself  was  in  God :  that  he  was  the 
bread  of  life  and  the  water  or  well  of  life,  and  that  if  any 
one  eat  of  him  he  should  never  hunger,  and  that  whoso- 
ever should  believe  on  him — "  out  of  their  bellies  shall 
flow  rivers  of  living  water,"  and  that  "  except  ye  eat  the 
flesh  of  the  Son  of  man  and  drink  his  blood  ye  have  no 
life  in  you."  Such  wild  and  incomprehensible  speeches 
astounded  some  and  disgusted  others.  They  drove  from 
him  the  ignorant  multitudes  in  Galilee  which  had,  at  first, 
flocked  around  and  encouraged  him.  The  strange  story 
about  the  ventral  rivers  and  a  few  others  scared  off  the 
officer  who  had  intended  to  arrest  him  and  who  declared 
that  he  had  never,  heard  such  talk- — that  "  no  man  ever 
spake  like  this  man." 


328  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

His  extraordinary  nervous  and  sympathetic  organiza- 
tion early  exhibited  itself  in  a  form  which,  although 
common  to  all  ages,  has  been  little  understood  in  any, 
and  which  more  than  anything  else,  perhaps,  tended  to 
the  self-delusion  of  Jesus  himself.  We  allude  to  his 
personal  magnetism, — whatever  that  may  be.  That  he 
possessed  an  extraordinary  amount  of  the  personal  in- 
fluence usually  called  personal  or  animal  magnetism, 
would  seem  very  evident  from  the  many  facts  casually 
stated  in  the  Gospels.  His  power  of  impressing  the 
masses  ;  his  wonderful  control  over  his  followers  ;  the 
picture  of  John  snuggling  on  his  breast  like  a  maiden 
lover,  that  of  strange  children  swarming  on  him  ;  of  one 
woman  following  him  even  to  a  gentleman's  table  and 
sitting  at  his  feet  bathing  them  with  her  tears ;  of 
another  bathing  his  feet  with  precious  ointment  and 
wiping  them  with  the  hair  of  her  head ; — all  these  while 
he  was  in  his  loving  and  attractive  mood ;  while,  in  his 
reversed  mood  or  revulsion  of  feeling,  we  find  his  awe- 
stricken  questioners  standing  dumb  under  the  light  of 
his  eye  and  terror  of  his  scathing  rebukes  or  anathemas ; 
his  disciples  quailing  without  a  word  before  his  sudden 
and  unaccountable  rebukes,  or  following  him  in  silence 
and  at  a  distance,  or  so  impressed  with  his  manner  that 
they  durst  not  speak  to  him; — all  show  his  singular  mag- 
netic power.  It  is  in  his  power  of  controlling  nervous  dis- 
eases and  soothing  convulsive  nervous  or  mental  agita- 
tions, however,  that  we  shall  witness  its  highest  evidences 
and  most  palpable  manifestations.  It  was  to  this  hidden 
and  apparently  superhuman  power  of  healing  and  sooth- 
ing, that  he  owed  the  first  popular  suggestions 
that  he  was  an  inspired  person, — possibly  the  Mes- 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  329 

siah  himself.  And  it  is  more  than  probable  that  his 
consciousness  of  possessing  this  mysterious  power 
gave  force  and  shape  to  his  own  extraordinary  spiritual 
aspirations  and  conceits ;  and  that,  coupled  with  the 
spirit  and  need  of  the  times,  and  the  adulations  and 
suggestions  of  others,  it  constituted  the  chief  cause  of 
his  extraordinary  self-deceptions  and  of  his  misguided 
energies.  That  it  formed  the  principal  agency  and  in- 
fluence in  his  cura'i  e  and  soothing  performances,  would 
seem  the  most  rational  conclusion  from  all  the  evidence, 
and  thus  it  constituted  the  chief  source  of  his  supposed 
miraculous  powers.  He  had  learned,  also,  the  well- 
established  fact  of  the  powerful  influence  of  faith  upon 
men's  actions,  powers,  diseases  and  senses.  His  con- 
ception of  its  power  and  influence  was,  indeed,  like  most 
of  his  other  notions,  extreme.  But  to  this  magnetic  power, 
to  the  absolute  faith  of  the  patient,  and  to  a  more  than 
ordinary  insight  into  the  nervous  type  of  diseases  then 
so  prevalent,  we  may  rationally  conclude  he  was  chiefly 
indebted  for  such  actual  successes  as  he  attained  as  a 
healer  and  devil-controller,  and  for  his  primary  fame 
among  the  masses  as  a  wonder-worker — (a  fame  which 
was  fairly  dwarfed  by  that  acquired  by  like  powers  and 
performances  in  that  same  age,  in  the  adjoining  prov- 
ince, by  Apollonius  of  Tyana).  But  as  we  shall  further 
notice  these  natural  causes  of  his  successes  we  will 
suspend  further  notice  at  present. 

The  highly  and  intensely  active  and  sympathetic  or- 
ganization which  gives  this  magnetic  power,  would  be 
likely,  under  such  favoring  conditions,  to  result  in  ex- 
cessive and  abnormal  mental  action  and  the  derangement 


33O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

of  the  emotional  life  of  its  possessor.  Such  nervous 
force  and  activity  would  naturally  tend  to  produce  an 
emotional  and  mental  activity  which  would  constantly 
tend  to  attract  and  centre  the  attention  of  the  mind  upon 
its  own  activities,  affections  and  mysterious  psychical 
.manifestations.  With  persons  so  organized  and  affected 
the  entire  thoughts  and  affections  tend  to  revolve  around 
their  own  central  life.  They  tend  to  become  introspect- 
ive and  intensely  self-conscious  and  self-absorbed, — a 
condition  most,  unfavorable  to  mental  health  and  balance. 
Such 'would  seem  to  have  been  the  case  with  Jesus.  He 
more  and  more  tended  to  centre  everyfctiing  in  himself. 
He  could  not  allow  his  followers  to  be  in  God  :  they 
must  be  in  him,  while  he  was  in  God.  He  would  not 
allow  God  to  be  in  his  disciples,  but  to  be  in  him,  while 
he  was  in  his  disciples.  He  must  be  the  medium  and 
centre  for  both  God  and  man.  He  was  intense  in  his 
sympathies  and  loves,  but  the  object  of  his  sympathy 
must  have  implicit  faith  in  him,  and  the  objects  of  his 
love  must  accept  their  ideas  from  him,  and  derive  from 
him  their  very  bread  of  life,  and  in  him  find  the  entire 
satisfaction  of  their  needs  and  aspirations.  He  de- 
manded, in  return  for  his  love,  an  absolutely  absorbing 
devotion  and  blind  faith.  His  sympathy  with  the  heart- 
joys  and  heart-sorrows  of  others  might  have  been  great, 
yet  high  over  the  beating  of  all  hearts  were  the  wild  throb- 
bings  of  his  own.  He  could  neither  silence  nor  mod- 
ulate them,  and  others  must  beat  in  unison  and  subor- 
dination, or  produce  angry  discord  in  his  soul.  He  could 
neither  brook  a  superior,  nor  share  the  adoration  of  the 
multitude  or  the  love  of  his  friends.  His  friends  were 
welcome  to  both  Earth 'and  Heaven,  were  the  boon  but 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  331 

received  at  his  hands.  He  must  be  their  "  meat  indeed, 
and  bread  indeed  " — they  in  him  and  him  in  them — 
they  eating  his  flesh  and  drinking  his  blood,  as  their 
very  bread  and  water  of  life,  and  then  they  should  "  in- 
herit the  earth,"  and  revel  in  all  the  joys  of  Heaven, 
"without  money  and  without  price."  Even  to  such 
startling  extremes  as  these  did  his  super-exalted  and  ab- 
normally concentrated  self-consciousness  drive  him, 
under  the  stimulants  of  popular  adulation,  the  adoration 
of  his  followers,  the  success  of  his  mysterious  powers 
and  the  excitements  produced  by  the  active  surveillance 
and  opposition  to  his  enemies. 


Let  us  now  endeavor  to  recall  and  realize  the  utter 
uncertainty  and  often  the  utter  impossibility  of  the 
asserted  facts  which  we  are  to  confront,  as  well  as 
the  causes  w.hich  we  have  already  noticed  for  ques- 
tioning, sifting  and  doubting,  or  rejecting,  the  Gos- 
pel recitals  of  the  marvellous  traditions  and  stories 
invented  by  after  times  or  told  by  the  superstitious, 
interested,  ignorant,  incompetent  and  excited  men  and 
women  chosen  by  Jesus  as  his  witnesses,  aiders  and 
followers, — let  us  keep  these  characteristics  of  our  evi- 
dence we  say,  distinctly  before  us,  while  we  attempt 
to  rapidly  follow  the  high-strung  and  strangely  excited 
young  aspirant  through  his  career  of  popular  wonder- 
working and  on  towards  that  ever-increasing  spiritual 
and  emotional  exaltation,  which  led  him  to  the  wildest 
egotism,  to  his  royal  entry  into  Jerusalem,  and  to  the 


332  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

cross.  To  be  true  to  ourselves  and  to  the  God  of  truth, 
in  examining  this  evidence,  we  should  at  least  feel  an 
equal  obligation  to  that  which  we  impose  upon  a  grand- 
juror  in  investigating  an  assault  and  battery — that  is,  to 
examine  it  "without  fear,  favor  or  affection  " — examine  it 
as  we  would  if  we  were  reading  an  account  of  just  such 
miraculous  stories  happening  now,  told  by  just  such  wit- 
nesses, written  by — we  know  not  who  ;  of  performances 
by  some  young  wonder-worker  in  Arabia  or  Persia,  or 
by  some  young  carpenter  of  Salt  Lake,  or  by  some 
spiritual  medium  of  Boston,  or  of  our  own  neighborhood. 
If  we  would  reject  the  claims  and  miracles  of  the  present 
day,  upon  like  evidence,  we  should  perceive  at  once  that 
our  hesitancy  to  do  so  in  the  case  of  Jesus,  is  the  result 
of  education,  of  the  awe  and  terror,  inspired  super- 
stition and  the  threats  of  damnation,  and  of  the  glamour, 
prestige  and  sanctity  which  Religion,  Time  and  Triumph 
have  thrown  around  the  person,  life,  labors  and  gospel  of 
the  young  Reformer  of  Galilee.  If  we  had  been  reared 
at  Mecca  or  Benares  we  should  have  found  no  such 
hesitancy 


Jesus  did  not  claim,  nor,  apparently,  even  imagine,  that 
he  was  the  "  Christ,"  until  some  time  after  the  com- 
mencement of  his  public  career — as  Mr.  Beecher  con- 
cedes. His  first  efforts  were  those  of  a  healer,  and, 
secondly,  those  of  an  Adventist — a  preacher  of  the  com- 
ing of  the  "  Kingdom  of  God."  The  suspicion  that  he 
might  be  the  Mess*iah  seems  to  have  culminated  in  him 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  333 

gradually,  the  idea  having  been  first  suggested  to  him 
by  others.     His  mysterious  magnetic  powers,  his  con- 
tinued excitement,  his  morbid  emotions  and  self-concen- 
tration, the  public  excitement  and  expectation,  and  his 
own  absorbing  interest  in   the  advent  of  the   Messiah, 
were  admirably  adapted  to  foster  such  a  conception  in 
such  a  mind.      But  whatever   mysterious    whisperings 
may  have  previously  visited  his  dreams,  or  whatever  ec- 
centric habits  or  strange  moods  may  have  alarmed  his 
family,  he  clearly  commenced  to  preach  for  some  other 
Christ  than  himself,  and  some  other  kingdom  than  his 
own.     At  first  he  was  simply  a  co-laborer  with  the  Bap- 
tist, without  exhibiting  the  slightest  intimation  that  he 
had  ever  thought  of  the  possibility  of  his  being  the  Mes- 
siah.    Mr.  Beecher,  in  speaking  of  this  first  half  of  his 
ministry,  most  significantly  remarks,  that,  "  We  shall  be 
struck  with  three  things  :  the  stimulating  character  in- 
dicated, the  remarkable  partnership  of  word  and  deed, 
and  absence  of  all  public  claim  to  the  Messiahship.     No 
where  is  there  evidence  that  he  proclaimed  this  truth  in 
his  public  discourses,  and  in  the  abstracts  and  fragments 
which  were   preserved    there    is    nothing   of  the   kind. 
Neither  does  there  seem  to  have  been  that  presentation 
of  himself  as  the  source  of  spiritual  life  that  is  so  wonder- 
ful at  a  later  stage  of  his  teaching."     No  :  Mr.  Beecher 
is  right :   his   super-exalted   self-consciousness  had  not 
engendered  the  idea  of  his  Messiahship,  nor  those  "  won- 
derful "  ones  which  made  him  think  himself  the  "  source 
of  spiritual  life."     As  yet,  although  the  causes  were  at 
work,  all  things  had  not  concentrated  upon,  been  subor- 
dinated to,  and  co-ordinated  with,  his  own  central  life. 
Up  to  the  close  of  his  sermon  on  the  mount,  and  after 


334  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

he  had  won  fame  throughout  "  all  Syria  "  as  a  wonderful 
healer,  he  had  never  once  hinted  to  his  hearers  his  divine 
nature  or  Messianic  mission.  Matthew  sums  up  his  labors 
prior  to  that  period  in  the  following  words  : — "  And  Jesus 
went  about  all  Galilee,  teaching  in  their  synagogues,  and 
preaching  the  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom,  and  healing  all 
manner  of  sickness  and  all  manner  of  disease  among  the 
people.  And  his  fame  went  throughout  all  Syria :  and 
they  brought  unto  him  all  sick  people  that  were  taken 
with  divers  diseases  and  torments,  and  those  which  were 
possessed  with  devils,  and  those  which  were  lunatic,  and 
those  that  had  the  palsy:  and  he  healed  them."  Here 
we  have  not  one  word  of  a  miracle,  of  a  claim  to  the 
Messiahship,  or  to  divinity,  or  to  being  the  "  source  of 
spiritual  life."  But  we  have  an  allusion  to  the  kind  of 
diseases  which  were  treated  by  him, — namely :  palsy, 
lunacy,  devil-possession  and  divers  diseases  and  tor- 
ments. The  terms,  "  divers  diseases  and  torments,"  are 
mere  general  expressions  which  are  made  specific  by  the 
subsequent  catalogue.  Not  a  single  disease  is  named 
which  is  not  of  a  nervous  or  mental  character.  It  is 
also- very  clear,  from  the  record,  that  such  diseases  were 
astonishingly  prevalent,  and  that  it  was  an  age  calcu- 
lated to  produce  them.  And  I  believe  it  is  agreed 
among  "  the  Faculty"  that,  where  there  is  a  prevailing 
cause  and  type  of  disease,  all  other  diseases  tend  to 
assume,  or  become  complicated  with,  that  type,  and  may 
be  aided  or  cured  by  its  appropriate  remedies.  We 
have  the  fact,  then,  that  the  diseases  treated  by  Jesus 
were  chiefly  of  the  nervous  order,  and  a  probability  that 
most  other  diseases  assumed  something  of  the  same 
type ;  and,  therefore,  may  conclude  that  the  magnetism 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  335 

and  faith  which  would  be  efficient  in  mental  and  nervous 
diseases,  would  probably  prove  more  or  less  efficacious 
in  most  instances.  That  he  had  some  power  of  healing 
or  temporarily  relieving  diseases,  which  appeared  mys- 
terious and  marvellous  to  the  ignorant  multitude,  may 
be  regarded  as  highly  probable  or  certain,  and  certainly 
may  be  conceded  without  derogating  from  the  claims 
of  natural  causation.  Perhaps  no  age  or  country  have 
been  without  such  men. 

His  increasing  reputation  as  a  preacher  and  healer 
was  not,  however,  destined  to  continue  without  other  and 
more  striking  results.  The  superstitious  and  credulous 
multitude,  on  the  tip-toe  of  expectancy  for  the  coming 
of  the  Christ,  began  to  audibly  speculate  as  to  who  this 
man  with  these  wonderful  powers  might  be,  and  to  sug- 
gest, among  other  things,  in  the  hearing  of  Jesus, 
whether  he  might  not  be  the  "  Son  of  David  " — the 
Christ  himself,  for  whom  they  were  daily  hoping  and 
looking.  Jesus  not  only  felt  the  full  force  of  the  public 
adulation,  but  was  immediately  and  astonishingly  fired 
by  the  suggestion  of  his  being  the  very  Messiah  himself 
whose  advent  and  Kingdom  he  was  preaching.  So  soon 
as  he  got  his  disciples  by  themselves,  he  promptly  in- 
quired of  them  who  the  people  thought  him  to  be. 
Upon  being  answered  that  they  variously  considered 
him  as  John  the  Baptist,  Elias,  and  "  that  prophet  which 
was  for  to  come,"  he  eagerly  inquired  as  to  who  they 
themselves  took  him  to  be,  and  Simon  told  him  that  he 
believed  him  to  be  "  the  Christ  the  Son  of  God."  Here 
was  more  than  a  hint !  His  exultation  was  instanta- 
neous, and  defied  all  bounds.  He  blessed  Simon  "  on 
the  spot : "  dubbed  him  "  a  rock : ''  and  declared  that  he 


33^  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

would  not  only  build  his  church  on  him,  but  would  con- 
fer on  him  the  custodianship  of  the  very  Keys  of 
Heaven  !  This  scene  compels  us  to  perceive,  not  only 
that  Jesus  had  never  hinted  his  divine  nature  or  Mes- 
siahship,  even  to  his  own  disciples,  previous  to  this,  but 
that  he  himself  had  never  very  distinctly  thought  of 
himself  in  connection  with  it  until  that  connection  had 
been  suggested  from  the  crowd — the  very  suggestion 
which  had  called  forth  these  private  inquiries  of  his  dis- 
ciples. Once  suggested,  however,  the  idea  instantly 
took  root  in  a  soil  so  prepared  and  so  appropriate,  and 
branched  and  grew  with  tropical  luxuriance. 


Once  launched  upon  this  Messianic  tide,  his  course 
became  ever  more  pronounced  and  self-endangering,  his 
ideas  ever  more  bizarre  and  visionary,  and  his  self-con- 
sciousness and  self-delusion  ever  more  morbid  and  ex- 
treme. Thenceforth,  he  could  not  select  the  men  who 
were  to  influence  his  destiny.  He  was  examined  and 
watched  by  men  who  indeed  looked  for  the  "  Son  of 
David,"  but  who  also  had  interests  at  stake  and  an  in- 
telligence to  satisfy — men  who  would  prostrate  them- 
selves before  him  if  he  proved  to  be  their  expected 
Messiah,  but  who  would  investigate  his  pretensions,  and, 
unless  satisfied,  would  oppose  him  as  a  dangerous  im- 
postor and  agitator.  Up  to  that  time  he  had  had  matters 
pretty  much  his  own  way,  because  he  had  been  in  the 
way  of  nobody  else.  Thenceforth  we  shall  see  him  en- 
countering enmity,  opposition,  espionage  and  personal 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES. 

dangers.  He  will  be  found,  under  the  excitement  of 
these  dangers  and  adverse  surroundings,  growing  in  his 
self-estimate  and  increasing  in  his  spiritual  intensity  and 
in  his  political  activity  and  demands.  He  will  be  found 
to  concentrate  his  affections  more  exclusively  upon  his 
faithful  followers,  and  to  care  less  for  the  mass  of  the 
class  he  blessed  in  his  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  to 
become  more  bitter  against  the  opposing  classes  that 
menaced  his  person  and  opposed  his  projects.  He  will 
be  found  oscillating  more  wildly  between  the  extremes 
of  affection  and  anger.  The  tone  of  the  "  beatitudes," 
of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  will  become  lost  in  the 
echoes  of  the  oft-repeated  "  woe  be  unto  you."  His 
scathing  denunciations  of  the  entire'wealthy,  intellectual 
and  influential  classes,  together  with  his  insulting  refusal 
to  give  them  any  sign  or  evidence  of  his  pretended  Mes- 
siahship,  had  thrown  the  upper  and  official  classes  into 
a  bitter  opposition  to  him  and  his  pretensions,  and 
thenceforth  he  could  but  reap  what'he  had  sown.  He 
had,  from  the  first,  refused  their  overtures,  defied  and 
denounced  them,  and  they  feared,  hated,  and  finally  de- 
stroyed him,  in  their  turn. 

But  the  young  and  fiery  reformer,  with  his  absorbing 
self-concentration,  was  not  the  man  to  yield  without  a 
struggle.  He  chose  the  masses,  and  threw  himself  upon 
them  for  support.  His  "  warrior  words,"  as  Mr.  Beecher 
calls  them,  rung  out  clearly  and  defiantly.  The  very 
curses  which  brought  upon  him  the  vengeance  of  the 
Temple  party,  endeared  him  to  the  beggared  and  suffer- 
ing populace  of  Galilee,  and  might  any  moment  ignite 
the  inflammable  masses  of  Jerusalem  itself.  Here  lay 

22 


338  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

his  hope.  He  had  cut  himself  from  all  chance  of  any 
other,  and  he  knew  it.  And,  as  dangers  and  difficulties 
thickened  around  him,  his  defiance  of  his  enemies  grew 
more  fierce,  and  his  efforts  to  win  or  recover  the  masses 
grew  more  designing  and  intense.  He  no  longer  ap- 
peared simply  as  the  blesser  and  healer  of  the  multi- 
tudes. Miracles  were  rumored  abroad  thick  and  fast, 
and  of  kinds  ever  more  startling  :  these,  and  these  alone, 
could  arouse  the  superstitious  masses  :  other  claims  there 
were  none  to  offer.  The  burden  of  his  speeches  was  no 
longer  "  repent  ye,  for  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand," 
but  "  he  that  believeth  on  me  shall  have  eternal  life,  and 
he  that  believeth  not  shall  be  damned." 

Having  conceived  his  Messianic  designs,  he  attempt- 
ed to  set  on  foot  an  organized  agitation  throughout  the 
entire  Jewish  population  of  Palestine.  His  chosen  dis- 
ciples were  commissioned,  instructed,  and  sent  forth  to 
proclaim  the  advent  of  the  Messiah.  To  enable  these 
disciples  the  better  to  convince  the  people,  he  conferred 
upon  them  the  "power  and  authority  over  all  devils  and 
to  cure  diseases"  Nothing  could  more  clearly  evince 
the  fact  that  he  was  totally  ignorant  of  the  nature  of  the 
powers  which  he  actually  possessed.  His  uncompre- 
hended  personal  powers  had  inspired  him  with  a  belief 
that  they  were  divine  powers  put  at  his  disposal.  His 
solemn  bestowal  of  "  power  and  authority  over  all  devils 
and  to  cure  diseases,"  consequently,  ended  as  might 
have  been  expected,  but  greatly  to  his  disappointment. 
His  disciples  could  neither  manage  the  devils  nor  the 
diseases.  He  had  failed  in  conferring  the  "  power  and 
authority."  Still,  as  a  matter  of  course,  he  never  sus- 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  339 

pected  the  fault  to  lie  in  the  nature  of  the  powers  them- 
selves, or  in  his  own  power  to  confer  them.  The  only 
solution  possible  to  him  was,  that  the  disciples  them- 
selves had  lacked  faitJi : — something  which  they,  of  all 
things,  least  lacked.  Their  uniform  and  unquestioning 
obedience,  and  their  present  readiness  to  go  forttuand 
trudge  over  Palestine  on  foot,  without  money  and  with- 
out scrip,  with  this  solemnly  conferred  power  over  devils 
and  diseases  as  their  sole  commission  and  voucher,  were 
certainly  supreme  evidence  of  a  supreme  faith.  His 
mistake,  however,  was  a  very  natural  one :  he  misunder- 
stood the  power  and  his  power  to  confer  it. 

This  failure  of  his  disciples  left  Jesus  wholly  depen- 
dent on  his  own  powers  for  maintaining  his  pretensions 
even  before  the  masses  : — a  matter  which  became  even 
more  necessary,  not  only  to  his  hopes,  but  to  his  per- 
sonal safety.  His  own  mental  labors,  anxieties  and  ex- 
citements increased  with  these  ever-increasing  demands 
upon  his  already  overwrought,  overworked  and  over- 
excited mentality.  Events  and  dangers  thickened  upon 
him.  He  was  compelled  to  assail,  to  defend,  to  evade, 
to  elude,  or  to  take  to  down-right  flight,  as  the  exigencies 
of  his  wonderful  destiny  demanded.  And,  through  it 
all,  there  was  but  one  hope  :  he  must  retain  or  recover 
his  hold  upon  the  ignorant,  fickle  and  wonder-loving 
multitude  which  had  first  given  shape  to  his  aspirations, 
and  which  had  ever  been  the  one  possibility  of  his  hopes 
from  the  beginning.  He  approached,  indeed,  to  that 
point  at  which  his  very  life  was  dependent  upon  his  sup- 
posed power  to  influence  the  multitude.  The  popular 
favor,  won  by  his  healing  and  wonder-working,  became 


34O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

his  sole  dependence  for  personal  safety,  as  it  had  always 
been  his  sole  chance  of  success,  even  for  heading  a 
Jewish  rebellion.  To  his  thaumaturgic  efforts,  there- 
fore, was  he  finally  reduced  for  his  sole  hope  of  success, 
and  even  for  personal  safety.  Judge  him  leniently 
thenceforth ! 


Before  closing  this  chapter  it  may  be  proper  to  ex- 
plain that,  in  speaking  of  animal  magnetism,  we  do  not 
intend  to  endorse  the  doctrines  of  Mesmerists,  Biologists, 
Spiritualists  or  Clairvoyants,  or  the  idea  of  any  "  spirit- 
ual sphere  "  or  odylic  or  other  new  or  strange  force,  but 
simply  to  assert  that  Jesus  possessed,  in  an  eminent 
degree,  that  personal  and  physical  influence  over  the 
nerves  and  feelings  of  others  which  is  a  power  we  sup- 
pose to  be  indisputable.  With  the  personal  qualities 
which  produce  this  influence,  and  the  cause  or  mode  of 
its  production,  we  are  not  essentially  concerned.  We 
are  concerned  only  to  know  that  some  such  personal  in- 
fluence exists,  and  that  Jesus  and  others  believed  that  he 
possessed  it,  and  that  it  was  a  superhuman  power  resid- 
ing in  his  person — concerned  only  with  the  phenom- 
ena, and  not  their  source  or  cause. 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  341 


CHAPTER  XI. 

JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES CONTINUED. 

WITH  the  insight  already  gained  into  the  character 
mental  condition,  beliefs,  purposes  and  environing  con- 
ditions and  circumstances  of  Jesus,  let  us  serially  ex- 
amine the  recitals  of  his  so-called  miracles,  in  the  light 
of  common  sense  and  upon  the  supposition  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  miracles. 

The  first  transaction  recited  by  Matthew  which  is 
claimed  to  have  been  a  miracle,  is  that  of  healing  a 
leper — (ch.  8).  It  is  stated  that  Jesus,  being  applied 
to,  touched  a  leper  with  his  hand  and  healed  him,  and 
ordered  him  to  go  and  report  himself  to  the  priests  at 
Jerusalem — (for  examination  under  the  Mosaic  law) 
That  which  is  at  once  fatal  to  this  narrative  is,  that  there 
was  no  witness  as  to  any  part  of  the  transaction  save  the 
patient  and  physician ;  and  Jesus  expressly  enjoined  it 
upon  his  patient  to  "  tell  no  man  "  what  had  occurred. 
Whoever  wrote  the  account,  therefore,  could  have  no 
higher  authority  for  his  assertions  than  mere  rumor  or 
hearsay.  Nor  are  we  even  informed  how,  or  why,  it  be- 
came rumored  abroad  after  this  express  requirement  to 
permit  "  no  man  "  to  know  of  it.  We  have,  then,  accord- 


342  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

ing  to  the  record  itself,  not  only  nothing  which  can  be 
called  evidence  that  any  such  occurrence  took  place,  but 
we  find  that  such  evidence  as  might  have  been  had  was 
forbidden.     But  had  the  leper  have  written  the  account 
himself,  it  would  have  been  but  the  unsworn  statement 
of  an  unknown  man.     And,  even  from  the  statement  as 
it  stands,-^have  we  any  competent  authority  as  to  the 
stage  and  condition  of  the  disease  ?     To  determine  this 
was  a  matter  of  skill, — in  which  the  priests  were  specially 
instructed  ;  and  it  was  for  their  decision  as  to  the  fact  of 
his  cure,  that  he  was  ordered  to  present  himself  to  them, 
at  Jerusalem.     The  man  does  not  declare  himself  healed, 
nor  was   he  competent  to  determine  that  fact.     Long 
after  Jesus  had  passed  away,  the  unknown  writer  of  this 
narrative  says  that  the  man  was  healed,  as  he  would  have 
said  and  believed  of  anybody  whom  Jesus  had  tried  to 
cure.     But,  How  did  he  know  that  the  man  was  healed  ? 
Or,  How  are  we  to  know  it  ?     It  does  not  appear  that  the 
priests  so  decided,  nor  that  the  man  ever  started  or  pre- 
tended to  go  to  Jerusalem.     He  may  have  died  in  an 
hour   afterwards,   for   all  the  evidence  we  have  in  the 
Gospel.     And   yet  this   is  what  they  call  stating   and 
proving  a  miracle !     There  is  not  a  particle  of  evidence, 
much  less  proof,  of  anything. 


Second.  The  second  miracle  is  in  the  same  chapter. 
We  are  told  that  a  centurion  desired  his  servant  healed, 
but  only  asked  that  Jesus  should  "speak  the  word," 
without  going  to  see  the  patient.  Jesus  replies — "  Go 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  343 

thy  way,  as  thou  hast  believed  so  be  it  unto  thee."  We 
are  then  told  by  the  writer,  that  in  that  "  self-same  hour  " 
the  servant  was  healed.  But,  how  are  we,  or  how  did 
he,  or  even  the  disciples,  know  that  fact  ?  For  the  fact 
that  the  centurion  even  had  a  servant,  or  that  he  was 
sick  at  all,  we  have  only  this  asserted  statement  of  an 
unknown  Roman  soldier  who,  for  aught  we  know,  or  they 
knew,  might  have  been  quizzing  the  young  Rabbi,  when 
no  one  was  sick,  just  to  see  what  he  would  do.  The 
very  fact  that  he  voluntarily  requested  Jesus  not  to  visit 
the  patient,  and  his  suspiciously-sublime  faith  and  the 
seemingly  mock  humility  with  which  he  recites  his  own 
greatness  and  yet  deprecates  his  unworthiness  to  have 
Jesus  come  near  him — all  to  prevent  his  coming  to  see 
his  patient,  would  seem  to  give  color  to  such  an  interpre- 
tation of  his  object.  Luke's  account,  not  only  plainly 
conflicts  with  Matthew's,  but  further  confirms  this  idea. 
Luke  says  (ch.  7)  that  the  centurion  did  not  come  to 
Jesus  at  all,  but  "  sent  unto  him  elders  of  the  Jews  "  to 
beseech  him  to  heal  his  servant,  professing  himself  to  be' 
unworthy  to  come  before  Jesus  ;  and  that  Jesus  actually 
started  to  go,  but  when  he  approached  the  house,  the 
centurion  "  sent  friends  "  to  tell  him  not  to  trouble  him- 
self to  come  into  his  house  as  he  was  unworthy  such  an 
honor.  The  centurion,  with  Eastern  politeness,  managed 
to  avoid  either  meeting  Jesus  or  have  him  enter  his 
house.  The  matter  looks  singularly  like  a  practical  joke 
or  quiz.  And,  considering  the  parties  and  their  then 
positions,  such  a  fact  would  not  have  been  improbable, 
nor  s-trange.  Of  the  fact  of  the  cure  we  have  nothing 
but  the  supposition  of  the  writer.  For  it  does  not 
appear  that  any  of  them  ever  knew  or  were  informed  of 


344  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

the  result,  at  any  time.  Nor  would  the  fact  that  the 
man's  fever  left  him,  or  that  he  got  better  from  that  time, 
be  the  slightest  evidence  of  a  miracle  or  that  the  mere 
wishes  of  Jesus  had  anything  to  do  with  it.  Such  coin- 
cidences happen  daily. 


Third.  We  are  next  told  (ch.  8)  that  the  mother-in- 
law  of  Peter  lay  sick  of  a  fever,  and  that  Jesus  took  her 
hand  and  the  "  fever  left  her."  But,  How  long  did  he 
hold  her  hand,  and  how  soon,  and  how  completely,  did  the 
fever  leave  her?  Had  the  time  arrived  for  an  inter- 
mission of  the  fever  at  that  hour  ?  Did  the  fever  return 
again  ?  Will  any  one  competent  to  investigate  a  miracle 
deny  the  importance  of  the  facts  suggested  by  these 
questions,  to  the  decision  of  the  question  of  a  miraculous 
cure  ?  And  yet  none  of  them  are  answered  or  met  by 
the  narrative.  As  it  stands,  there  is  no  assertion,  even, 
of  a  permanent  cure,  or  of  facts  to  assure  us  that  the  re- 
lief came  through  Jesus.  But,  even  conceding  that 
Jesus  did  relieve  her  or  cure  her  by  "  putting  on  of 
hands," — is  that  a  proof  of  divine  power  or  a  proof  of 
the  very  reverse — of  a  physical  or  magnetic  influence  ? 
Surely  the  answers  to  these  questions  cannot  be  doubt- 
ful. The  power  or  influence  may  have  been  unusual 
and  even  extraordinary,  but  it  is  not  supernatural  ;  and 
the  very  fact  that  he  habitually  brings  himself  into 
physical  connection  with  his  patients,  shows  that  it  was 
a  physical  influence.  With  such  faith  in  the  patients, 
and  such  physical  connections  with  the  healer,  such  cures 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  345 

cannot  be  called  even  "marvellous:" — the  examples 
have  been  too  numerous  to  permit  them  to  be  regarded 
as  such.  The  fact  that  the  influence  proceeded  from  the 
body  of  Jesus  through  means  of  contact  and  was  aided 
by  the  faith  of  the  patient,  was  unquestionably  recognized 
by  Jesus  and  doubtlessly  by  his  followers,  but,  while  this 
would  be  fatal  to  his  miraculous  pretensions,  with  us, 
such  facts  would  not  at  all  alter  their  miraculous  char- 
acter according  to  their  ancient  and  very  different 
notions  about  miracles.  To  Jesus  and  his  followers 
they  would  still  have  been  miracles.  One  thing  is  to  be 
observed  in  this  connection.  No  estimate  can  be  formed 
of  the  real  amount  or  duration  of  his  personal  contact  or 
manipulations  from  these  accounts.  In  this  very  case 
Matthew  merely  says  "  he  touched  her  hand,"  while 
Mark  says,  of  the  same  case,  "  he  came  and  took  her  by 
the  hand  and  lifted  her  up  ; "  and  Luke  says  "  he  stood 
over  her  and  rebuked  the  fever'' 


Fomth.  We  are  next  informed,  in  the  same  chapter, 
that,  while  in  the  Lake  Gennesaret  in  a  storm,  "  he  re- 
buked the  winds  and  there  was  a  great  calm."  Mark 
adds,  that  "  the  waves  beat  into  the  ship,  so  that  it  was 
now  full,  and  he  was  in  the  hinder  part  of  the  ship  asleep 
on  a  pillow."  There  is  no  statement,  even,  of  a  miracle 
here.  Just  how  they  could  have  managed  to  continue 
their  voyage  with  a  ship  "  full  "  of  water,  or  how  Jesus 
could  have  slept  on  his  "  pillow  "  in  a  fishing-smack  in 
such  a  storm,  and  have  to  be  waked  up  but  of  a  ship 


340  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

already  '-'full"  of  water,  is  by  no  means  clear.  That 
they  should  not  have  aroused  him,  not  only  for  their  own 
•sake,  but  for  his  own  safety  (if  he  could  miraculously 
sleep  under  such  circumstances),  is  quite  incredible,  un- 
less the  so-called  storm  was  but  a  sudden  squall  of  wind 
which  momentarily  endangered  them  and  caused  them  to 
ship  more  water  than  was  comfortable.  Both  their  con- 
duct and  that  of  Jesus  forbid  any  other  conclusion.  If 
for  no  other  cause  than  their  own  safety,  they  would 
have  appealed  to  "  all  hands," — much  more  to  their  all- 
powerful  Master,  so  soon  as  real  danger  threatened 
them  ;  and  they  actually  did  so.  For,  notwithstanding 
the  stereotyped  addendiun  of  their  "  astonishment " — 
(after  he  had  done  what  they  asked  him  to  do)  we  find 
they  did  think  he  could  save  them  ;  for,  when  the  peril 
was  on  them,  they  came  and  woke  him,  saying,  "  Lord, 
save  us  :  we  perish" — or,  as  Mark  has  it,  "Master,  carest 
thou  not  if  we  perish."  The  whole  facts,  as  stated, 
are  incompatible  with  any  danger,  save  from  a  sudden 
"  squall "  of  wind.  But  what  then  ?  Why  simply  this, 
that  when  the  momentary  squall  had  passed  there  would 
be  a  "  great  calm  " — as  such  sudden  squalls  are  ordinarily 
both  preceded  and  succeeded  by  such  calms.  They  are 
mere  violent  puffs  of  wind  of  a  few  moments'  duration, 
ordinarily  occurring  in  sultry,  calm  weather.  But,  Did 
not  Jesus  "rebuke  the  winds?"  Ve  y  possibly:  but 
just  how  the  winds  felt  about  it,  is  not  so  clear.  No 
doubt  it  had  the  effect  intended — that  is,  to  encourage 
his  panic-stricken  disciples.  Caesar  effected  the  same 
purpose,  in  a  storm,  when  he  called  upon  his  boatmen  to 
remember  that  they  carried  Caesar  and  his  fortunes. 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  347 

Fifth.  We  have  next,  in  the  same  chapter,  the  casting 
out  the  devils  from  "  Legion."  Upon  going  into  the 
country  of  the  Gergesenes,  or,  as  others  more  properly 
have  it,  of  the  Gadarenes, — that  is,  into  the  city  or  town 
of  Gadara,  Jesus  and  his  disciples  met  two  fierce  madmen 
who  dwelt  among  the  tombs  of  the  city  cemetery,  and  were 
dangerous  to  persons  passing.  According  to  both  Mark 
and  Luke  there  was  but  one,  who  was  called  "  Legion." 
The  devils  who  possessed  this  "  Legion  " — (let  us  follow 
the  majority)  called  out  in  that  set,  stereotyped  style  so 
common  to  all  the  devils  everywhere, — "  What  have  we 
to  do  with  thee,  Jesus,  thou  son  of  God  ?  Art  thou  come 
hither  to  torment  us  before  the  time  ? "  They  then 
beseech  him  to  suffer  them  to  enter  into  a  herd  of 
swine  which  were  some  way  off — a  herd  which  we  else- 
where learn,  numbered  2000.  Jesus  was  considerate,  and 
sent  them  into  the  swine.  But  the  swine  performed  the 
extraordinary  feat  of  running  into  the  sea  and  drowning 
themselves  ;  for  which  the  people  respectfully  invited 
Jesus  to  leave  their  city. 

Were  it  possible  for  any  mind  to  give  a  second 
thought  to  such  a  story  as  this,  if  told  in  our  day,  several 
very  pertinent  questions  would  press  for  an  answer,  i. 
Was  not  the  "whole  city  "  well  justified  in  appealing  to 
Jesus,  en  masse,  "  to  depart  out  of  their  coasts"  for  such 
a  wanton  and  wholesale  destruction  of  their  swine  ?  2. 
What  sea  were  these  ill-used  hogs  drowned  in,  and  What 
were  the  "coasts"  of 'this  "whole  city?"  Gadara  was 
an  inland  town,  situated  on  the  rocky  and  almost  isolated 
hill  which  forms  the  terminus  of  the  mountains  of  Gilead 
inhabited  by  Jsraelitish  people.  It  was  a  mountain 


348  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

town,  having  neither  coast,  lake,  nor  sea  near  it.     The 
writer  of  the  miraculous  narrative  supposes  it  a  seaport 
city  with  its  "coasts  "  and  its  sea,  to  ingulf  the  vast  herd 
of  swine.     There  was  no  water  near  it  that  would  drown 
a  single  pig.     3.  Was    not   2000    swine  rather  a  large 
lot  to    find  herding  in    one  body — especially  along  the 
barren    and    rocky  slopes  of  Mount    Gilead  ?     4.  Was 
it  not  still  more  singular  that  they  should  have  been  so 
fortunately  at  hand  on  that  special  occasion  ?     5.  Was  it 
not  an  incomparable  marvel  that  such  a  drove  of  hogs 
should  be  found  herded  around  a   Hebrew  city  whose 
divine  laws  forbid  the  use  of  pork  at  all,  and  to  whose 
people  it  was  an  abomination  ?     For   these  Gadarenes 
were  a  branch  of  the  tribe  of  Manasseh.     6.  Could  all 
Israel  have  exhibited  so  many  swine,  from  the  days  of 
Moses  down  ?     7.  What  right  had  Jesus  to  cause  or  per- 
mit the  perpetration  of  such  cruelty  upon  these  dumb 
creatures,    or   the   wanton  destruction   of    such    a  vast 
amount   of  other    people's  property — merely  to  gratify 
a  host  of  demons  ?     If  it  was  merely  to  show  his  power, 
without  caring  for  consequences,  would  it  not  have  been 
well  to  have  somebody  to  see  and  be  convinced  ?     And, 
Would  it  not  have  proved  more  successful  had  he  have 
ordered  back  the  hogs  to  life  and  to  shore  again  ?     8.  If 
devils  did  control  the  beings  they  entered,  as  they  were 
supposed  to  do,  Why  did  the  devils  drive  them  into  the 
sea  and  drown  them,  after  they  had  begged  for  them,  so 
beseechingly,  as  a  shelter  for  themselves  ?     9.  What  be- 
came of  the  devils  ?    Were  they  drowned  also  ?    10.  Does 
it  not  require  a  faith  as  all-engulphing  as  a  maelstrom, 
to  reflect  that  each  of  these  2000  hogs  must  have  had  at 
least  one  whole  devil  to  inspire  and  direct  it,  and  still 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  349 

believe  that  the  whole  of  these  2000  devils  had  their 
abode,  and  found  room  for  desirable  quarters,  in  the  one 
human  body  of  poor  Legion  ;  and  that  the  man  could 
still  live  while  infested  with  this  diabolical  host  ? — How 
large  are  these  devils  ? — are  they  trachina  ? 

That  this  one  poor  Israelite  could  have  constituted  a 
pandemonium  for  such  a  host  of  demons ;  that  there 
should  also  happen  to  be  just  the  2000  hogs  to  accommo- 
date them,  feeding  on  the  rocky  slopes  of  this  Israelitish 
and  pork-despising  city ;  that  a  special  sea  and  coast 
should  be  created  for  the  sole  purpose  of  drowning  these 
hogs  ;  that  these  2000  microscopic  devils  should  have  in- 
habited one  man,  and  should  know  all  about  Jesus  and  the 
approved  mode  of  addressing  him  as  the  "  Son  of  God," 
and  should  have  gotten  permission  to  seek  a  home  in 
those,  unoffending  pigs  and  then,  forthwith,  have  driven 
them  to  destruction  in  that  "unknown  sea,"  and  thus 
deprive  themselves  of  their  anxiously-sought  shelter  and 
these  poor  Hebrews  of  such  a  host  of  swine, — that  all 
this  should  have  actually  happened  is  rather  too  much 
miracle  for  a  single  dose. 

Let  us  not  pass,  however,  so  suitable  an  opportunity 
as  this  for  noticing  this  statement  and  belief  about 
devils  and  devil-possession,  which  is  so  often  repeated  in 
the  Gospels.  Every  class  of  enlightened  people  now 
fully  understand  that  the  ancient  belief  in  •  dreams, 
witchcraft,  magic  and  devil-possession  was  a  mistake, 
notwithstanding  all  these  beliefs  are  directly  inculcated, 
or  recognized  as  true,  by  the  Bible.  We  feel  no  surprise, 
and  make  no  complaints,  that  these  beliefs  were  prevalent 
in  that  early  age, — knowing  that  they  constitute  a  nat- 


35O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

ural  phase  of  beliefs  in  the  progress  of  human  develop- 
ment, everywhere.  But,  when  we  are  called  upon  to 
base  our  religion  and  salvation  upon  miracles  which  con- 
sist of  casting  out  devils,  and  thus  curing  persons  who 
were  actually  devil-possessed,  then  these  beliefs  cease  to 
be  mere  matters  of  curious  history,  and  concern  us  most 
profoundly.  We  are  called  upon  to  either  admit  the  ex- 
istence of  these  devils  or  to  discard  the  pretended  mira- 
cle ;  and,  in  doing  so,  to  confess  the  ignorance  or  char- 
latanry of  their  professed  worker.  Can  we  believe  that 
such  small  demoniac  beings  exist  in  such  hordes  upon 
the  earth,  and  that  they  enter  into  men  or  animals,  and 
live  in  them  like  parasites,  controlling  their  actions  and 
maliciously  torturing  them ;  conversing  with  outside 
persons  in  any  and  every  human  language ;  having 
knowledge  of  remote  and  hidden  facts  requiring  a  uni- 
versal "  clairvoyance,"  and  even  an  insight  into  the  hid- 
den councils  of  God  ?  Does  not  every  one  kn'ow  that 
the  phenomena  which  ancient  and  unenlightened  people 
attempted  to  account  for  by  the  presence  and  control  of 
devils,  were  but  manifestations  of  insanity,  and  that  under 
this  belief,  the  singular  notions  and  conduct  of  Jesus 
himself  subjected  him  to  the  open  charge  of  having  a 
devil-?  And  yet  this  sinless,  perfect  and  inspired  man 
and  incarnate  God,  Jesus,  did  unquestionably  believe 
in  them — did  unquestionably  pretend  to  talk  to  them 
and  to  ^command  and  control  them  at  his  pleasure ! 
and  the  Gospels  show  us,  not  only  that  this  casting 
out  devils  was  his  most  frequent  miracle,  but  was  the 
one  upon  which  he  himself  specially  relied  to  prove 
that  his  own  power  was  from  God,  and  not  from  devils. 
If  Jesus  did  not  believe  in  them,  he  was  a  charlatan  from 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  351 

the  beginning — a  charge  for  which  there  is  no  sufficient 
warrant  in  the  facts.  Yet  to  really  believe  in  them  was 
in  direct  derogation  of  all  his  superhuman  pretensions. 
What  solution,  then,  remains  but  that  which  is  both  the 
consistent  and  true  one, — namely  :  that  he  did  believe 
in  them,  like  all  men  of  his  time,  that  he  was  but 
human,  and  was  humanly  mistaken.  His  casting  out 
devils,  what  there  was  of  it,  was  the  result  of  the  influ- 
ence and  control  which  his  magnetic,  and  other  personal 
powers  exerted  over  the  nervous  functions  and  derange- 
ments of  others.  Insanity,  in  its  multiplied  forms,  was, 
indeed,  the  finest  field  for  the  display  of  his  chief  and 
most  mysterious  power.  The  supposed  talk  of  the  de- 
mons to  Jesus  was,  of  course,  through  the  lips  of  the  de- 
moniac,— that  is,  it  was  the  madman  himself  talking. 
The  wonderful  knowledge  which  enabled  them  to  know 
Jesus  and  to  proclaim  him  the  "  Son  of  God  "  in  a  style 
of  address  so  uniform  and  in  such  direct  conformity,  not 
with  what  Jesus  then  preached,  or  with  what  any  of  his 
followers  then  believed,  but  in  conformity  with  what  was 
believed  when  the  Gospels  were  written,  shows  their  or- 
igin clear  enough.  They  were  mythic  mouldings  of  the 
supposed  scenes  in  their  own  language  and  in  conform- 
ity with,  and  in  support  of,  their  own  subsequent  notions 
and  purposes,  by  the  Evangelists  or  others,  long  after 
the  resurrection  had  given  a  new  phase  to  the  preten- 
sions ot  Jesus,  and  a  new  direction  to  the  aims  and  hopes 
ot  his  followers.  The  men  who  wrote  them  knew  no 
more  of  the  language  actually  used  in  those  long-forgot* 
ten  dialogues  than  Josephus  or  Plutarch  knew  of  the 
long  speeches  which  they  recite  verbatim,  and  yet,  of 
which  they  could  know  nothing. 


352  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

Sixth.  The  next  miracle  (ch.  9)  was  the  curing  of 
a  man  with  the  palsy  —  a  nervous  prostration.  This 
case  presents  but  one  new  feature.  All  the  rest  may  be 
accounted  for  in  like  manner  as  the  relief  of  other  ner- 
vous affections  have  been  accounted  for.  But  Jesus 
here  varies  his  terms  in  addressing  the  patient, — saying 
"  Thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee,"  instead  of  saying — ''  Arise, 
and  walk,"  or  "Be  thou  whole  or  clean."  This  incensed 
the  Pharisees.  But  Jesus  explained  that  it  was  as  easy 
to  say  the  one  thing  as  the  other,  and  cited  as  a  proof 
that  he  had  power  to  forgive  sins,  the  fact  that  he  could 
heal  the  man's  sickness.  This  seems  a  striking  non-se- 
quitor  to  those  who  are  not  familiar  with  the  notions  of 
undeveloped  peoples.  In  the  days  of  Jesus  the  people 
thought  that  all  diseases  were  sent  upon  men  on  account 
of  their  sins.  They  had  no  conception  of  natural  causes 
or  afflictions,  but  regarded  afflictions  as  a  divine  punish- 
ment. Hence,  Jesus  thought  that,  as  he  had  healing 
powers,  he  must,  of  course,  \&NQ.  forgiving  powers  :- — for, 
was  not  curing  the  disease  a  remission  of  the  penalty  of 
the  sin  ?  This  is  another  striking  illustration  of  how 
fully  Jesus  was  imbued  with  the  simple  and  primitive 
ideas  of  his  time  and  class. 


Seventh.  The  next  "  marvellous  work "  is  found  in 
the  same  chapter,  and  consists  of  the  alleged  cure  of  a 
woman  "  diseased  with  an  issue  of  blood  twelve  years," 
by  her  touching  his  garments.  Upon  being  thus  touched, 
Jesus  turned  and  said — "  Daughter,  be  of  good  comfort, 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  353 

thy  faith  hath  made  thee  whole."  The  writer  then  tells 
us  that  "  the  woman  was  made  whole  from  that  hour." 
A  moment's  consideration  must  show  that  this  assertion 
of  a  cure  must  have  been  the  mere  inference  or  conclu- 
sion of  the  writer  or  of  his  informants.  And  we  are  not 
only  furnished  with  no  facts  showing  any  opportunities 
for  forming  an  opinion  about  the  matter,  but  the  nature 
of  the  facts  and  circumstances  are  violently  presumptive 
that  even  the  disciples  who  might  have  been  present  had 
no  means  of  knowing  the  cure  which  was  presumed  and 
reported.  The  woman  approached  and  touched  Jesus 
as  he  passed  on  to  see  another  patient.  He  turned  and 
spoke  to  her  and  passed  on.  The  woman  herself  said 
nothing  about  so  delicate  an  infirmity  or  its  cure,  nor 
was  anything  else  said  to  her.  No  one  could  tell,  on  the 
public  road,  what  immediate  effect  was  produced,  not 
even  the  woman  herself  ;  while  her  future  condition  or 
cure  could  only  be  determined  by  time.  The  whole  case 
shows,  that  here,  as  in  other  cases,  the  followers  of  Jesus 
assumed  the  success  of  his  powers  and  virtues  from  the 
sole  fact  that  he  exerted  them.  There  occurred  in  this 
case,  not  a  single  fact  from  which  a  cure  could  be  infer- 
red, nor  is  there  a  hint  that  the  woman  spoke  then  of  her 
cure  or  that  she  was  ever  heard  from  afterwards  ;  while 
the  nature  of  the  disease  would  forbid  any  discussion 
or  examination  of  the  matter  by  the  witnesses.  Jesus 
said,  "  thy  faith  hath  made  thee  whole  " — and  of  course 
the  woman  -was  whole.  Such  were  the  modes  of  believ- 
ing and  of  asserting,  and  such  were  the  miracles  which 
were  believed  and  asserted,  by  those  simple  and  san. 
guine  believers  in  Jesus.  The  case  proves  but  two 
things — the  woman's  hopes  of  relief,  and  the  accepted 

23 


354  JESUS  AND  RELIGION. 

notion  as  to  the  source  from  which  his  healing  virtue 
emanated, — namely,  from  his  body  ;  since  the  woman  in- 
tended to  touch  him  secretly,  believing  that  to  be  suffi- 
cient without  his  knowing  anything  about  it.  His  body 
was  regarded  as  being  a  kind  of  charm  or  fetich  with 
healing  virtue  in  it,  just  as  his  name  afterwards  came  to 
be  regarded  as  having  cabalistic  power,  in  itself. 


Eighth.  The  next  miracle  is  recited  in  the  same 
chapter,  and  consists  of  the  alleged  cure  or  resurrection 
of  the  daughter  of  Jairus.  The  recitals  of  this  occur- 
rence are  admirable  examples  of  the  characteristic  care 
and  reliability  of  those  who  furnish  us  our  gospel  evi- 
dence, and  of  the  manner  in  which  miracles  were  gotten 
up  and  reported  in  those  days.  This  is  claimed  as  an 
instance  of  his  bringing  the  dead  to  life.  According  to 
Matthew,  the  father,  on  coming  to  Jesus,  said  "  my 
daughter  is  even  now  dead."  Mark  has  the  same  matter 
thus — "  my  little  daughter  lieth  at  the  point  of  death" 
This  difference  between  being  actually  dead  and  being 
at  the  point  of  death  makes  all  the  difference  in  the 
world  between  the  effects  of  these  two  accounts.  It 
changes  the  operation  from  a  miracle  to  no  miracle — 
from  making  one  live  who  was  dead,  and  making  one 
better  who  was  still  living.  Mark,  or  some  interpreter, 
has  improved  his  account  by  adding  that  they  were  told 
on  the  way  that  she  was  dead.  Jesus  himself,  however, 
puts  this  whole  matter  at  rest.  Having,  doubtlessly, 
inquired  of  the  father  as  to  the  symptoms  or  nature  of 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  355 

the  disease,  as  they  were  on  their  way  to  see  the  girl,  he 
twice  declared  that  it  was  not  a  case  of  death,  but  that 
the  girl  only  slept ;  meaning,  doubtlessly,  that  she  was 
in  a  state  of  lethargic  or  cataleptic  sleep,  or  something 
beyond  ordinary  repose.  What  are  we  to  say  then  ? 
Did  Jesus  plainly  tell  the  truth  ?  or,  Did  he  plainly  tell  a 
direct  and  positive  untruth  ?  Are  we  to  presume  that 
Jesus  lied,  in  order  that  we  may  prove  one  of  his  as- 
serted miracles  ? 

But  the  singular  features  of  these  accounts  do  not  end 
here.  Matthew  says  that,  "  When  the  people  were  put 
forth,  he  (Jesus)  went  in  and  took  her  by  the  hand  and 
the  maid  arose."  Mark  says,  that  he  took  with  him  into 
the  girl's  room  three  of  his  disciples  and  the  girl's  pa- 
rents, which  would  seem  to  conflict  with  Matthew's  ac- 
count ; — the  latter  clearly  implying  that  the  people  were 
turned  out  to  allow  the  physician  to  see  her  alone.  But, 
What,  according  to  Jesus'  statement  of  her  condition, 
occurred  ?  Simply,  that  Jesus  succeeded  in  awakening 
this  sleeping  girl  from  her  abnormal  sleep.  This  was 
all.  What  was  the  matter  with  her,  or  what  became  of 
her  is  not  even  referred  to.  There  is  not  miracle  enough 
here  to  detain  us. 


Ninth.  The  next  miracle  is  found  in  the  same  chap- 
ter. Two  blind  men,  it  is  said,  came  to  him  and  asked 
to  be  healed.  And,  on  being  assured  that  they  had  faith 
in  Jesus,  he  touched  their  eyes  and  said,  "  according  to 
your  faith  be  it  unto  you  ;"  and  it  is  said  their  "  eyes 


356  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

were  opened  " — that  is,  their  sight  was  restored.  While 
Jesus  uses  here  his  accustomed  remedy  of  putting  their 
eyes  in  contact  with  his  body,  he  evidently  had  not  the 
faith  in  its  efficacy  which  he  had  in  cases  of  more  evi- 
dently nervous  origin.  He  used  other  physical  remedies 
in  eye-diseases,  as  we  find,  and  he  here  exhibits  a  cau- 
tion not  customary  in  strictly  nervous  diseases.  He  in- 
terrogated these  men,  specially,  as  to  whether  they  be- 
lieved he  could  cure  them,  and  took  the  precaution  to 
announce  their  cure  conditionally.  If  they  were  not  re- 
lieved there  would  be  no  difficulty : — it  was  their  lack  of 
faith.  He  also  took  the  precaution,  as  in  the  case  -of 
leprosy,  to  "  straightly  charge  them  "  to  "  see  that  no 
man  know  it."  He  evidently  did  not  desire  to  get  a 
reputation  for  healing  such  diseases. 

We  have  here,  also,  the  same  difficulties,  so  con- 
stantly met  with,  as  to  the  real  condition  of  the  men's 
eyes  both  before  and  after  the  operation.  The  writer 
says  -they  were  blind,  but  so  he  had  just  represented 
Jairus'  daughter  as  dead,  when  Mark  represents  her,  at 
the  same  moment,  as  only  on  the  "  point  of  death,"  and 
when  Jesus  positively  averred  that  she  was  not  dead. 
The  writer  gives  no  fact  by  which  it  can  be  even  in- 
ferred that  he  either  knew,  was  informed,  or  could  rea- 
sonably be  supposed  to  be  informed,  as  to  their  con- 
dition or  cure.  There  were  no  witnesses  present,  and 
the  men  were  "straightly  enjoined "  to  tell  it  to  "no 
man."  Surely  we  cannot  rely  upon  such  evidence  to 
prove  a  miracle.  If  these  men'  had  been  allowed  to  tell 
of  the  matter,  might  we  not  have  found  that  Jesus  really 
performed  other  physical  operations  upon  their  eyes,  as 
we  know  he  did  in  other  cases  where  the  eye,  ear  or 


JESUS   AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  357 

tongue  were  concerned  ?  May  not  the  desire  to  conceal 
these  ordinary  operations,  and  his  necessity  of  using 
them,  have  been  the  chief  motive  for  his  injunction  of 
secrecy  ?  and  may  not  they  have  been  the  very  matter 
which  was  to  be  so  "  straightly  "  guarded  from  leaking 
out?  Can  any  one  suggest  even  a  plausible  motive 
which  is  consistent  with  the  assumed  character  and 
mission  of  Jesus,  why  he  should  have  desired  to  keep 
these  cures  secret  any  more  than  that  of  Jairus'  daugh- 
ter or  others  which  were  publicly  performed  ?  And 
again  :  Is  it  not  of  profound  significance  that  it  is  just 
those  classes  of  diseases  which  would  be  wholly  unlikely 
to  be  affected  by  magnetic  and  by  mental  influences,  in 
which  we  find  Jesus  taking  the  men  aside  and  operating 
without  witnesses,  and  also  operating  with  ordinary  phys- 
ical means,  and  also  giving  the  strictest  injunctions  of 
secrecy  ;  while  he  fearlessly  and  openly  trusts  the  mental 
influence  of  faith,  and  the  bodily  or  magnetic  influence 
through  contact,  in  "  casting  out  devils  "  and  other  ner- 
vous derangements  ?  We  find  in  this  case,  that  these 
men  followed  Jesus  on  his  departure  from  the  house  of 
Jarius,  where  he  had  performed  a  feat  whose  fame,  we 
are  informed,  "  went  abroad  into  all  that  land  ; "  and 
that  as  they  followed  him  they  were  "  crying,  saying, 
Thou  son  of  David  have  mercy  on  us."  All  this  Jesus 
neither  replies  to,  nor  notices, — a  thing  most  contrary 
to  his  usual  habit.  But  as  soon  as  they  follow  him  into 
the  house,  where  he  is  alone  and  out  of  reach  of  public 
observation,  Jesus,  without  a  word  further  on  their  part, 
said  to  them — "  Believe  ye  that  I  am  able  to  do  this  ?  " 
and  proceeds  with  his  remedies, — whatever  they  were. 
Are  we  mistaken  in  saying  that  there  is  something  very 


358  JESUS   AND   RELIGION. 

significant  in  all  this  matter  ?  If  there  is  not  evidence 
that  there  was  a  miracle  performed  here,  Is  there  not  a 
link  in  a  whole  chain  of  evidence  cropping  out  through 
the  Gospels,  which  will  lead  us  towards  an  explanation 
of  both  the  miracles  and  the  miracle-worker  ? 

It  seems,  also,  that,  after  all  this  strict  injunction  of 
secrecy  from  their  benefactor,  these  men  evidently  did 
not  regard  it  as  applying  to  the  fact  of  the  cure  itself, 
for  we  are  told  that,  "  when  they  were  departed "  they 
"  spread  abroad  his  fame  (not  his  processes)  in  all  that 
country."  Is  not  this  highly  confirmatory  of  the  view 
we  have  taken  concerning  these  strict  injunctions  of 
secrecy  ?  Is  it  not  clear  that  they  were  attempts  to 
conceal  the  remedies,  and  not  the  fact  of  cure  ? 


Tenth.  The  next  is  found,  still  in  the  same  chapter. 
Here  is  all  of  it :  "  They  brought  to  him  a  dumb  man 
possessed  with  a  devil.  And  when  the  devil  was  cast 
out,  the  dumb  spake," — not  another  word  of  it.  Here 
we  have  one  of  those  moody,  silent  victims  of  insanity 
brought  to  Jesus.  Whether  the  case  was  of  long  stand- 
ing, was  intermittent  or  remittent,  or  how  it  was,  we  are 
not  told.  It  does  not  appear  that  the  man  was  born 
dumb,  but  only  that  he  had  a  "  dumb  devil ;  "  for  so  soon 
as  the  devil  was  cast  out,  the  man  spoke.  Right  here 
such  powers  as  those  of  Jesus  evidently  would  meet 
with  their  natural  success.  Many  men  have  had  most 
marvellous  powers  of  influencing  and  controlling  even 
madmen,  and  the  difference  between  men  in  this  regard 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  359 

is  known  to  be  very  great.  Jesus  simply  induced  a 
sullen  madman  to  speak  when  those  about  him  had 
failed  to  do  so : — this  was  the  miracle !  To  men  who 
supposed  that  he  had  to  cast  out  of  the  man  a  living  devil 
that  controlled  him  and  refused  to  let  him  speak,  the 
feat  appeared  to  be  a  great  marvel, — as  showing  his  power 
over  the  very  devils  themselves.  But,  I  doubt  whether 
such  a  control  or  influence  over  an  insane  person  would 
be  regarded,  by  any  commonly  informed  person  of  our 
day,  as  being  at  all  marvellous, — much  less  miraculous. 


Eleventh,  The  next  miracle  was  the  restoring  of  a 
"withered  hand" — (chap.  12).  We  are  told  that,  after 
having  offended  the  Pharisees  by  permitting  his  disciples 
to  pluck  corn  to  eat  on  the  Sabbath,  Jesus  went  into  the 
Synagogue,  where  the  Pharisees  awaited  him,  hoping  to 
get  occasion  for  accusing  him  on  account  of  exercising 
his  healing  profession  on  the  Sabbath.  There  was  a 
man  present  who  is  said  to  have  had  a  "  withered  hand  ;" 
and  Jesus,  not  only  claimed  his  right  to  heal  on  the  Sab- 
bath, but  made  this  man  stretch  forth  his  hand,  and  it  is 
said  that  the  hand  "  was  restored  whole,  like  as  the 
other."  Whether  Jesus  did  anything  to  it  does  not  ap- 
pear. The  Pharisees  seem  to  have  recognized  no  miracle 
or  divine  power  in  what  occurred  in  their  presence,  as, 
doubtlessly,  we  should  not  were  we  cognizant  of  the 
whole  facts.  But  the  accounts  of  it,  as  a  public  exhibi- 
tion of  a  miracle,  are  conspicuously  brief,  and  have  a 
suspicious  verbal  identity  in  all  three  of  the  synoptical 


360  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

Gospels  in  which  it  appears  ;  while  the  terms  used  by  all 
are  such  as  might  cloak  deception.  They  all  call  it  a 
"  withered  hand,"  the  command  and  the  action  touching 
the  stretching  out  of  the  hand  are  nearly  identical,  while 
the  cure  is  stated  verbatim  in  all,  save  that  Matthew,  in- 
stead of  saying  "  as  the  other  hand,"  says  "  like  as  the 
other  hand."  There  was  no  one  examined  the  hand  either 
before  or  after  it  was  stretched  forth,  nor  was  there  any 
examination  of  the  other  hand  before  the  feat.  Nor  are 
we  told  that  the  hand  was  ciyed,  but  each  uses  the  same 
terms,  (with  the  insignificant  exception  mentioned,)  and 
tell  us  that  it  was  restored  whole  "  as  the  other."  But, 
How  whole  was  the  other?  Why  do  all  mention  that  it 
was  made  whole  as  the  other  hand,  instead  of  simply 
saying  it  was  cured  or  made  whole  ?  Might  it  not  have 
been  as  whole  as  the  other,  before  ?  Who  examined,  or 
knows  ?  There  was  no  precaution  taken  against  pre- 
concert, nor  have  we  any  statement  of  the  extent  to 
which  the  hand  was  withered  or  restored,  save  the  com- 
parative and  rather  suspicious  one  mentioned.  And, 
while  the  meagreness  of  the  recitals  and  the  similarity 
of  the  extent  and  wording  of  them  prevent  us  from  get- 
ting any  certain  clue  to  the  facts,  there  is,  also,  no  nega- 
tiving of  the  facts  which  would  destroy  it  as  a  miracle. 
From  the  fact  that  this  performance  was  in  the  presence 
of  his  enemies,  there  is  more  reason  for  suspecting  man- 
agement and  collusion  here  than  in  ordinary  cases ;  for 
the  Gospels  inform  us  that  he  could  perform  no  mighty 
works  among  the  Nazarenes,  because  of  their  unbelief, 
— could,  in  fact,  do  nothing  but  heal  a  few  sick  folks. 
Perhaps  a  knowledge  of  this  difficulty  in  the  presence 
of  opponents  may  have  suggested  pre-arrangements. 


JESUS   AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  361 

There  is  no  difficulty  in  the  matter  if  we  suppose  collu- 
sion, and  the  difficulty  in,  and  disinclination  to,  suggest 
collusion  is  much  lessened  by  the  fact  that  Jesus  was 
already  in  personal  danger  from  the  very  men  before 
whom  he  performed,  and  was  compelled  to  go  into  hiding 
from  fear  of  them,  on  account  of  this  very  transaction. 
The  resorting  to  this  explanation,  although  perfectly 
legitimate  both  on  principle  and  from  the  facts,  is  not 
deemed  necessary  here,  as  a  natural  explanation  is  not 
negatived  by  the  statement, — much  less  by  the  evidence. 
Of  real,  legitimate  evidence  we  have  not  one  particle  on 
the  subject. 


Twelfth,  We  have  in  the  twelfth  chapter  still  an- 
other miracle.  We  are  given  neither  the  evidence  nor 
the  recital  of  a  miraculous  performance,  but  merely  the 
assertion  that  there  was  "  brought  unto  him  one  pos- 
sessed with  a  devil,  blind  and  dumb  :  and  he  healed  him, 
insomuch  that  the  blind  and  dumb  both  spake  and  saw." 
This  is  all  of  it.  The  mode  in  which  he  cured  him 
is  not  referred  to  at  all.  Surely,  to  say  that  a  doctor 
or  professed  healer  cured  an  afflicted  man,  is  not 
to  assert  that  he  performed  a  miracle  on  him.  And 
yet,  this  is  simply  all  it  does  say.  When  nothing 
but  the  mere  fact  of  cure  is  mentioned,  we  certainly 
have  no  right  to  assume  the  remedy, — much  less  as- 
sume it  to  have  been  a  miraculous  one.  Had  this  not 
been  the  case  of  a  single  individual,  indeed,  it  would  not 
have  been  referred  to,  but  have  been  classed  with  those 


362  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

general  and  wholesale  declarations  concerning  the 
"  works "  of  Jesus,  which  call  for,  and  permit  of,  no  ex- 
amination. 


Thirteenth.  In  the  fourteenth  chapter  we  have  the 
first  of  the  famous  miracles  of  the  "loaves  and  fishes." 
Immediately  after  the  execution  of  John  the  Baptist  and 
the" return  of  his  own  disciples  from  their  tour  of  agitation 
and  of  preaching  the  coming  of  the  "  Kingdom,"  Jesus 
and  his  disciples  entered  into  a  vessel,  proposing  to  go 
to  a  "  desert  place,"  (that  is,  a  retired,  uninhabited  place,) 
belonging  to  Capernaum,  —  called  by  one  Gospel  a 
"  mountain."  Matthew  differs  from  Mark  in  stating  the 
facts  about  the  multitude's  following  him — (Mark  vi.). 
Matthew  says  the  people  heard  of  his  going,  and  followed 
him.  Mark  says  that  "  the  people  saw  them  departing, 
and  many  knew  him,  and  ran  afoot  thither  out  of  all 
cities,  and  out  went  them,  and  came  together  unto  him. 
And  Jesus  when  he  came  out,  [of  the  ship,]  saw  much 
people,"  etc.  So  that,  we  are  to  understand  the  distance 
was  but  short,  that  the  people  were  informed  of  the  par- 
ticular place  to  which  he  was  going,  and,  it  would  seem,- 
were  there  to  meet  him  when  he  came  out  of  his  vessel, 
and  that  it  was  on  his  account  that  the  people  went  out, 
although  he  himself  had  left  privately  and  by  water. 
We  are  told  that  this  multitude  who  thus  spontaneously 
followed  him,  amounted  to  five  thousand  men,  besides 
the  women  and  children.  Making  a  fair  estimate,  under 
the  circumstances  here,  the  number  of  the  women  and 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES,  363 

children  would  be  more  likely  to  exceed  than  to  fall 
below  that  of  the  men.  There  would,  therefore,  have 
been  a  crowd  of  some  ten  thousand  or  more  persons,  in 
all.  This  multitude  spent  the  day,  in  that  unfrequented 
spot,  with  Jesus  and  his  disciples.  When  it  "was 
evening,"  and  the  "  day  was  now  far  spent,"  his  disciples 
are  said  to  have  suggested  the  propriety  of  dismissing 
the  assembly  to  enable  them  to  return  to  their  homes 
and  the  "  villages  "  to  get  food.  Jesus  proposed  to  feed 
them  there ;  and,  upon  being  told  that  there  were  but 
five  loaves  and  two  small  fishes  to  be  had,  he  ordered 
the  multitude  to  be  seated  on  the  ground  : — which  was 
accordingly  done, — as  other  Gospels  tell  us, — in  com- 
panies of  hundreds  and  fifties.  He  then  takes  the  bread 
and  the  fishes  and  breaks  or  divides  them  into  separate 
rations,  both  of  fish  and  bread,  for  each  person  present, 
and  hands  these  rations  to  his  disciples,  who  carry  them 
round  and  distribute  them  to  the  several  persons  com- 
posing the  multitude.  We  are  then  informed  that  the 
people  eat  until  they  were  "  filled  ; "  and  that,  after  they 
had  thus  filled  some  ten  thousand  people,  the  disciples 
went  round  and  gathered  up  twelve  baskets  full  of  frag- 
ments which  the  people  had  failed  to  eat.  This  was 
the  miracle. 

Before  considering  the  after  occurrences  of  the  day 
or  forming  an  opinion  as  to  the  probable  actual  object  of 
this  gathering  of  the  people,  let  us  pause  to  consider  the 
consistency  and  credibility  of  the  Gospel  recitals  up  to 
this  point. 

And  first,  Why  did  these   able-bodied  men  take  a 


364  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

"  ship  "  to  go  so  short  a  distance — a  distance  that  women 
and  even  children  walked  ?  The  people  were  both  told 
of  his  going  and  saw  him  go.  It  could  not  have  been  to 
prevent  those  who  followed  him  from  knowing  his  desti- 
nation or  from  coming  to  meet  him,  for  they  were  not 
only  apprised  of  the  secret  spot,  but  was  there  before 
him.  So  it  could  not  have  been  to  gain  time  or  elude 
the  people  who  thus  favored  him.  Had  this  been  so,  in- 
deed, he  would  not  have  left  his  vessel  and  remained  all 
day  with  the  people,  but  would  have  continued  his  voyage 
until  he  had  found  the  seclusion  he  sought.  His  meet- 
ing them  there  could  not  have  been  accidental  on  his 
part,  nor  could  such  a  crowd  be  gathered  in  so  lonely  a 
spot,  several  miles  from  the  city,  without  having  previous 
warning  and  some  sufficient  common  motive.  Nor  can 
the  going  in  a  ship  for  so  short  a  distance  be  rationally  ac- 
counted for,  unless  there  was  some  object  in  taking  the 
vessel,  beyond  the  mere  purpose  of  transporting  them- 
selves. For  the  distance  was  not  only  very  short,  but 
their  usual  mode  of  travel  was  on  foot,  and  Jesus  actually 
preferred  to  return  by  land,  after  all  the  fatigues  of  the 
day.  And  yet,  all  that  the  ship  appears  to  have  done,  was 
to  go  and  return  with  them.  The  inference  is  very  strong, 
then,  that  the  ship  was  used  to  convey  something  which  it 
would  have  been  inconvenient,  or  imprudent,  to  carry  by 
hand.  The  taking  of  the  ship  was  clearly  for  an  object 
which  has  not  been  permitted  to  reach  us,  and  this  is 
the  only  presumable  object. 

But,  again  :  What  was  the  object  of  this  immense  as- 
sembly in  this  desert  or  retired  spot  ?  A  movement,  en 
masse,  like  this,  to  a  definite  out-of-the-way  place,  to 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  365 

spend  the  day,  does  not  take  place  without  some  com- 
mon and  well-understood  purpose,  or  source  of  attraction. 
The  fact  that  a  popular  man  or  performer  leaves  such  a 
place  as  Capernaum  by  ship,  "  privately,"  to  go  to  a  pri- 
vate and  retired  spot  for  a  private  purpose,  cannot  ac- 
count for  an  immense  crowd  of  men,  women  and  children, 
from  the  surrounding  country,  moving  on  foot  to  the 
very  same  "  desert  "  or  lonely  spot  to  which  he  had  pri- 
vately determined  to  sail  by  ship  : — no,  not  even  if  a  few 
citizens,  or  even  many  citizens,  were  to  see  and  recog- 
nize him  as  he  sailed  off.  Jesus  and  his  fishermen- 
disciples  had  often  sailed  off  from  Capernaum  in  that 
same  way  without  finding  any  such  multitude  awaiting 
them  or  meeting  them  at  their  destination  to  spend  the 
day.  The  attempt  of  subsequent  writers  to  give  an  air 
of  spontaneity  to  this  movement,  and  to  produce  the  im- 
pression that  Jesus  and  his  disciples  had  no  idea  of 
meeting  the  people  there,  cannot  command  the  slightest 
rational  credence. 

The  next  question  for  consideration  is, — How  could 
there  have  been  collected  so  vast  a  multitude  ?  Surely, 
Capernaum  would  send  out  no  such  multitude.  Matthew 
says  they  followed  him  on  foot  "out  of  the  cities /"  while 
Mark  says  that,  as  they  were  departing,  "  many  knew 
him  and  ran  on  foot  thither  out  of  all  cities"  '  But  when 
the  disciples  came  to  speak  of  dismissing  the  multitude, 
they  recognized  no  place  near  them  as  a  city,  but 
designated  the  places  within  reach  as  "  villages  " — in- 
cluding Capernaum.  Making  all  proper  allowance  for 
ancient  proclivities  to  exaggerate  numbers,  and  especially 
where  the  effect  is  to  heighten  a  miracle  or  wonder,  it  is 


366  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

incredible  that  such  a  number  of  people, — much  less 
such  a  number  of  believers  in  Jesus,  would  have  been 
collected  in  Capernaum  and  have  gone  on  such  an 
excursion,  without  having  been  brought,  largely,  from 
other  cities  or  places  for  a  common  purpose. 

What  was  this  purpose  ?  The  transactions  of  the 
day  ought  to  have  exposed  it.  But  upon  this  point  the 
Gospels  are  singularly  reticent.  Mark  sums  up  the 
performances  preceding  the  miracle  by  saying — "  he 
began  to  teach  them  many  things"  Matthew  sums  it 
up  thus  : — "and  he  healed  their  sick."  Luke  advances 
so  far  as  to  say,  that  he  spoke  to  the  people  of  "  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  and  healed  them  that  needed  healing." 
John  says  nothing  about  it.  The  only  performances 
which  are  intentionally  disclosed,  then,  were  those  of 
his  every-day  life  in  their  midst.  Why  go  out  to  this 
"  desert  place "  to  perform  these  ?  If  he  cured  by 
divine  power  he  could  have  cured  them  anywhere  and  at 
a  word.  If  he  preached  about  the  expgcted  "Kingdom" 
only  what  he  taught  openly  in  the  Synagogues, — Why 
make  women  and  children  walk  some  three  miles  to  this 
lonely  spot  to  hear  it?  What  was  it  he  now  first 
"  began  "  to  teach  them  ? 

In  looking  at  the  accounts  of  the  miracle  itself,  still 
further  questions  present  themselves.  Granting,  for  the 
moment,  that  Jesus  had  power  to  multiply  or  magnify 
the  provisions, — How  is  it  possible  for  one  man's  hands 
to  go  through  the  physical  motions  of  dividing  and  hand- 
ing to  others  this  amount  of  provisions — some  forty 
mule  loads,  within  the  time  indicated,  unless  they  were 
oiled  with  lightning  ?  Where  did  he  deliver  out  these 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  367 

rations  ?  from  the  ship  where  their  things  were  stored, 
or  from  some  place  of  deposit  to  which  they  had 
brought  them  ?  Did  anybody,  save  the  disciples,  see 
this  frightful  legerdemain  in  dividing  and  handling  the 
provisions,  and  this  appalling  swelling  of  the  bread  and 
fish  ?  Could  that  superstitious  multitude  be  kept  quietly 
seated  and  eating,  in  ranks  of  fifties  and  hundreds,  while 
witnessing  this  awful  process  ?  Could  they  be  induced 
to  touch,  much  less  eat,  the  "  uncannie  mess  "  while 
witnessing  its  unnatural  production  and  distribution  ? 
To  see  one  man  break  bread  and  divide  fish  and  hand 
them  out  for  distribution  at  the  rate  of  about  four  or  five 
pieces  per  second,  to  the  amount  of  forty  mule  loads, 
and  all  coming  from  five  loaves  of  bread  and  two  little 
fishes,  was  a  sight  which  would  have  produced  a  general 
"  stampede  "  of  all  those  who  had  not  already  fainted ! 
For  this,  be  it  remembered,  is  not  alone  a  question  of 
the  spiritual  power  of  Jesus,  but  one  involving  the 
physical  possibilities  of  his  human  body  and  the  effects 
of  his  actions  upon  the  minds  of  offers.  And  again : 
How  could  those  men,  during  the  brief  time  indicated, 
have  counted,  ranked  and  located  that  number  of  un- 
disciplined men,  women  and  children  into  fifties  and  hun- 
dreds, then  personally  supply  each  with  rations  of  both 
fish  and  bread,  and  then  go  round  and  pick  up  all  the 
fragments  ?  For  all  this  had  to  be  done  from  the  time 
it  was  already  "  evening  "  and  when  the  "  day  was  far 
spent "  and  the  time  when  the  crowd  was  dismissed  to 
go  home  or  to  the  surrounding  villages  and  while  they 
were  sitting  waiting  for  their  food.  Is  it  not  manifest 
that  it  would  be  a  brilliant  full  day's  work  for  a  dozen 
men,  even  if  they  could  perform  it  all  in  that  time? 


368  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

And  again :  Why  were  the  fragments  of  food  which 
were  left  on  the  ground  picked  up  and  saved  ?  What 
was  done  with  them?  There  could  be  no  object  in 
picking  them  from  the  ground  but  to  save  them.  If 
Jesus  could  create  fish  and  bread  at  this  rate,  however, 
Why  save  these  scraps,  scattered  on  the  ground,  which 
none  but  the  poorest  people  would  use  ?  The  motive 
of  economy  will  not  consist  with  such  miraculous  re- 
sources.— And  no  other  motive  can  be  assigned,  of  an 
honest  character,  for  this  act  of  economy. 

But  still  again :  Why  were  those  twelve  baskets  there 
at  all?  For  what  purpose  did  a  dozen  men,  who  took 
but  five  loaves  and  two  little  fishes  for  their  lunch,  take 
with  them  twelve  empty  baskets,  just  one  for  each 
disciple  who  carried  provisions,  and  none  for  Jesus  who 
did  not  ?  Can  any  man  conceive  that  a  dozen  men 
would  bring  a  dozen  baskets,  under  the  alleged  circum- 
stances, without  pre-arrangement  and  a  specific  purpose  ? 
Why  do  we  never  hear  of  these  baskets  happening  to 
be  on  hand  except  at  these  miraculous  fish-feasts,  and 
yet  always  find  them  then  and  there  ?  and  why  do  these 
baskets  never  bring  anything,  but  just  happen  to  be  on 
hand,  on  both  those  two  occasions,  just  in  time  to  carry 
something  a^vay;  and  that,  too,  something  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  accounts,  nobody  anticipated  would  be  there  to 
&?  carried  back  ?  A  true  solution  of  the  facts  concerning 
those  fish-feasts  should  furnish  an  explanation  of  so 
marked  and  characteristic  a  feature  of  the  occasion  as  the 
presence  of  these  dozen  provision  baskets.  Their  pres- 
ence had  a  purpose  in  connection  with  the  contemplated 
proceedings  of  the  day :  What  was  it  ?  The  contemplated 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  369 

proceedings,  according  to  the  Gospel  accounts,  not  only 
furnish  no  excuse  for  bringing  them,  but  shows  that 
there  could  have  been  none.  They  do  not  even  tell  us 
how  the  baskets  came  there.  But,  surely,  they  did  not 
spontaneously  walk  there  "  on  foot,"  like  the  multitude ! 
— nor  did  Jesus  create  them  ! 

And  again :  Why  was  fish  and  bread,  and  fish  and 
bread  alone,  furnished  the  people?  This  was  just  the 
same  kind  of  food  that  the  disciples  themselves  had  for 
their  own  use.  If  there  was  real  divine  power  used  to 
create  the  food,  it  did  not  require  the  few  loaves  and 
fishes  to  work  upon.  He  could  just  as  easily  have 
furnished  food  from  a  stick  or  from  nothing,  or  have 
converted  their  lunch  of  fish  and  bread  into  the  most 
wholesome  and  delightful  viands  and  beverages,  and 
have  had  tables  appear  spread  with  them,  as  to  do  what 
he  is  said  to  have  done.  Why,  then,  this  meagre  bill  of 
fare  of  cold  fish  and  bread,  to  be  served  in  baskets,  to  be 
eaten  from  bare  hands,  and  to  be  partaken  on  the  bare 
ground?  Why  have  we  fish  and  bread  (at  both  these 
fish  miracles)  without  vegetables,  fruits,  beverages  or 
any  other  kind  of  meats  ?  Let  any  mortal  attempt  to 
answer  these  questions  and  they  will  find  but  one 
rational  one,  namely — that  they  were  not  able  to  furnish 
any  other.  This  was  simple  fishermen' s-fare,  and  this 
they  could  furnish,  poor  as  they  were. 


Let  us  now  examine  some  of  the  recitals  following 
24 


3/O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

those  of  the  miracle.  As  to  the  proceedings  after  the 
collection  of  the  fragments  John's  narrative  essentially 
differs  from  the  others.  These  variations  will  be  found, 
also,  to  be  very  suggestive  and  significant.  After 
stating  the  miracle  Matthew  tells  us,  that  "Jesus  con- 
strained his  disciples  to  get  into  the  ship,  and  to  go  be- 
fore him  unto  the  other  side,  while  he  sent  the  multitude 
away,  and  when  he  had  sent  the  multitude  away,  he 
went  up  into  a  mountain  apart  to  pray."  John  gives  us 
quite  a  different  story,  and  assigns  a  comprehensible 
reason  for  the  course  pursued.  He  says — "  then  those 
men  when  they  had  seen  the  miracle  which  Jesus  did, 
said,  this  of  a  truth  is  that  prophet  that  should  come  into 
the  World.  When  Jesus  therefore  perceived  that  they 
would  come  and  take  him  by  force  and  make  him  a  king, 
he  departed  again  into  the  mountain  himself  alone. 
And  when  even  was  now  come  his  disciples  went  down 
into  the  sea  and  entered  into  a  ship,"  etc. 

This  statement  of  John  gives  the  first  hint  for  the 
solution  of  so  many  unusual  and  unaccountable  things. 
This  hint  is  found  in  the  result  of  the  meeting, — namely  : 
an  enthusiastic  desire  to  proclaim  Jesus,  king,  on  the 
spot.  This  chief  and,  in  fact,  only  result  is  never 
hinted  by  either  of  the  other  Gospels.  With  this  clue, 
let  us  endeavor  to  solve  the  mystery  of  this  singular 
gathering — a  solution,  as  I  think,  not  even  difficult. 


As  this  was  the  first  of  those  large  .secret  meetings 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  371 

which  most  conspicuously  mark  the  signal  change  which 
actually  occurred  in  the  proceedings  of  Jesus,  we  natur- 
ally expect  to  find  unusual  causes  and  conditions 
preceding  it,  which  will  account  for  the  unusual  size 
and  composition  of  the  assembly,  as  well  as  for  its 
privacy  and  for  its  evident  pre-arrangement,  etc.  For 
no  assigned  or  apparent  purpose,  sufficient  fragments  of 
the  actual  facts  are  disconnectedly  stated  to  enable  us  to 
recover  the  chief  facts  and  purposes  controlling  the 
movement.  Jesus  had  been  in  the  midst  of  his  most 
hopeful  schemes  and  greatest  activity  for  securing  the 
popular  support  to  his  own  accession  to  the  throne  of 
the  Messianic  Kingdom  which  he  and  the  Baptist  had 
been  preaching.  Although  he  had  not,  as  yet,  clearly 
and  publicly  proclaimed  himself  as  the  Messiah,  the 
purpose  to  do  so  had  been  formed  and  had  been  shaping 
all  his  recent  plans  and  actions.  His  political  aspira- 
tions and  plans  had  been  assuming  definite  shape  and 
his  "  warrior  words  " — as  Mr.  Beecher  calls  them — had 
begun  to  ring  out  with  firmer  tone.  He  had  sent  out 
his  twelve  disciples  to  canvass  and  arouse  all  Palestine, 
and  to  prepare  the  people  for  the  advent  of  the  Messiah, 
which  he  assured  them  would  happen  before  they  had 
finished  their  tour  of  preparation ; — telling  them  that 
he  had  not  come  to  send  peace  on  Earth,  but  a  sword — 
(Matt.  x.  23,  34).  His  disciples  had  gone  forth  on 
their  mission  and  had  just  returned  to  Capernaum  to 
report  to  their  master.  These  returned  disciples  had 
also  reported  to  Jesus  the  fact  that  Herod  had  just 
executed  John  the  Baptist — the  first  great  agitator  of 
this  politico-religious  excitement  and  expectancy  about 
the  Christ.  It  is  at  this  point,  also,  that  he  was  first 


3/2  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

informed  that  Herod's  suspicions  were  aroused  against 
himself,  and  that  he  was  making  inquiries  concerning 
him.  Our  accounts  show  that  there  were  present,  at 
the  "desert  place,"  delegations  or  persons  from  "all 
cities," — that  is,  from  the  various  cities  of  Palestine,  who 
had  been  in  Capernaum,  and  had  followed  on  foot  as 
Jesus  had  left  by  water.  This  was  a  gathering  which 
was  wholly  unusual  in  such  a  place  as  Capernaum,  and 
was  a  fact  to  be  kept  from  exciting  the  attention  or 
suspicion  of  the  officials  of  Herod  and  the  enemies  of 
Jesus.  Such  were  the  chief  facts  influencing  and  inter- 
preting the  events  in  question. 

The  first  question  which  presents  itself  is, — Why 
did  all  those  people  from  the  cities  of  Palestine  meet  at 
Capernaum  where  Jesus  was,  and  go  out  to  spend  the 
day  with  him  and  hear  him  preach  and  see  him  perform 
at  that  retired  spot,  several  miles  from  the  town,  on  that 
special  occasion  ?  Why  so  unprecedented  an  arrival  of 
strangers  from  "all  cities"  just  at  the  time  of  the 
arrival  or  return  of  the  twelve  disciples  from  their 
missionary  labors  through  those  cities, — about  the  re- 
sults of  which  the  Gospels  are  so  profoundly  reticent  ? 
Is  it  not  incredible  that,  in  the  then  inflammable  and  ex- 
pectant state  of  the  Jewish  mind,  those  twelve  men 
could  have  visited  any  Jewish  city,  with  their  enthusi- 
astic proclamations  of  the  miraculous  works  and  preach- 
ing of  Jesus,  without  exciting  such  an  interest  in  the 
minds  of  some  of  the  highly  expectant  disciples  of  the 
Baptist  or  in  other  sanguine  persons,  in  this  new  and 
wonderful  man,  as  would  create  a  desire  to  see  and  hear 
him  for  themselves?  When,  therefore,  we  find  such  men 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  373 

from  the  various  cities  actually  assembled  in  the.  city 
where  Jesus  had  remained,  and  find  them  going  out  to  a 
specific  private  place  to  spend  the  day  with  him,  just 
after  the  return  of  his  emissaries,  and  find  no  assigned  or 
conceivable  cause  for  such  an  extended  ingathering  of 
people  from  "  all  cities  " — save  that  which  they  actually 
united  in  exhibiting,  and  find  all  of  them  informed  of 
the  fact  and  place  of  meeting, — when  we  see  all  these 
concurring  indicia  —  Are  we  not  irresistibly  led  to 
associate  their  presence  with  the  labors  and  return  of 
the  disciples,  and  to  connect  their  motives  with  the 
presence  and  performances  of  Jesus  ?  Are  we  not  con- 
firmed in  our  conclusions,  also,  when  we  find  that  their 
presence  and  conduct  (otherwise  so  inexplicable  and  so 
incongruous  with  the  impression  which  the  after  record 
of  them  would  convey)  become  completely  rational  and 
comprehensible  by  assuming  the  interpretation  of  them 
to  which  all  the  facts  so  directly  point  ?  Does  not  the 
whole  mystery  vanish  when  we'  suppose  these  men  to 
have  been  instigated  by  these  emissaries  of  Jesus  to  meet 
them  at  Capernaum  and  see  and  hear  Jesus  for  them- 
selves, and  that  they  were  there,  under  the  direction  and 
management  of  the  disciples,  for  that  special  purpose  ? 
Is  not  this  conclusion,  at  once,  legitimate  and  rational, 
and  the  only  one  that  is  consistent  with,  and  explana- 
tory of,  all  the  facts  ? 

But  Why  this  retirement  to  a  private  and  lonely  spot 
several  miles  out  of  town  ?  This  unusual  place  for 
preaching  is  also  accounted  for  by  our  rendering  of  the 
facts  and  motives.  This  was  a  politico-religious  meeting, 
gotten  up  and  managed  by  Jesus  and  his  disciples  for 


374  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

the  purpose  of  advancing  his  claims  to  the  Messianic 
throne  of  Israel — the  throne  of  David.  This  movement 
was  then  in  its  greatest  activity  and  promise.  Jesus  had 
long  since  attracted  the  attention  and  won  the  ill-will  of 
the  official  and  intelligent  classes  of  the  Jews,  and  now 
his  activity  and  boldness  before  the  masses  and  the 
efforts  of  his  followers  to  arouse  the  whole  country  had 
awakened  the  suspicions  of  Herod  (his  own  immediate 
ruler),  who  had  just  executed  the  predecessor  of  Jesus 
in  this  Messianic  agitation.  Both  these  facts,  as  we 
learn,  became  known  to  Jesus  through  his  disciples,  just 
after  their  return  and  immediately  before  this  meeting 
in  the  "  desert  place "  was  determined  upon.  These 
new  facts  rendered  it  both  impolitic  and  dangerous  to 
assemble  these  strangers  within  sight  of  the  public  and 
there  discuss  the  Messianic  claims  of  Jesus — his  claim 
to  rule  even  over  Herod  himself,  and  to  have  men  clam- 
oring to  have  him  proclaimed  King  at  once.  And  while 
it  would  not  do  to  let  these  strangers  go  away  without 
an  endeavor  to  satisfy  and  secure  them,  it  became  neces- 
sary to  do  so  with  prudence  and  privacy.  To  this  end 
a  lonely  spot  or  "  desert  place "  along  the  lake  shore 
(which  we  learn,  from  the  distance  mentioned  in  the  ac- 
count of  the  return  by  water,  was  several  miles  from  Ca- 
pernaum), was  selected  for  this  important  meeting. 
Having  determined  this,  the  disciples  and  their  families 
made  the  necessary  preparations  to  secure  the  success  of 
the  meeting,  perhaps  with  aid  from  unmentioned  friends. 
As  the  people  would  go  on  foot  and  remain  during  the 
day,  a  chief  part  of  their  preparations  would  consist  in 
cooking  and  furnishing  food  for  the  hungry,  to  keep 
them  in  a  favorable  humor  ;  for  while  the  substantial 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  375 

friends  in  Capernaum '  could  be  notified  to  provide  for 
themselves,  many  others,  and  especially  the  strangers, 
could  not  be  expected  to  do  so.  As  the  secret  convey- 
ance of  these  provisions  to  the  ship  and  the  waiting  on 
the  multitude  and  witnessing  the  operation  of  supplying 
food  could  only  be  trusted  to  his  faithful  coadjutors, 
there  would  be  required  just  one  basket  to  each  of  the 
twelve  disciples.  Both  the  baskets,  and  such  provisions 
as  the  baskets  would  not  contain,  would  be  stowed  away 
in  the  vessel,  out  of  sight.  To  have  carried  these  pro- 
visions by  land  was  too  troublesome  and  too  public. 
Their  fishing-smack  was  the  very  thing  both  for  con- 
venience, for  secrecy  and  for  suggesting  and  aiding  the 
miracle.  Of  course  these  poor  fishermen  could  furnish 
only  such  provisions  as  their  trade  furnished  and  as 
they  used  themselves, — and  such  as  could  be  cooked  by 
their  families, — namely,  cold  bread  and  fish.  This  was 
fishermen's  fare,  and  this  was  what  was  furnished. 

We  can  now  understand  the  strange  fact  of  twelve 
baskets  (and  exactly  twelve)  appearing,  all  at  once,  in 
that  "  desert  place."  There  were  thirteen  men,  but  Jesus 
did  not  need  a  basket  for  his  part.  We  can  also  under- 
stand why  these  thirteen  stout  and  habitual  walkers 
should  take  a  ship  to  go  where  women  and  children 
walked.  We  can  also  understand  exactly  why  they  had 
their  ordinary  fish  and  bread  —  always  "  loaves  and 
fishes  " — for  their  miraculous  dinners.  We  can  under- 
stand, also,  why  these  poor  fishermen  acted,  not  as  if 
they  had  a  miraculous  larder  always  on  hand  with  unlim- 
ited resources,  but  as  if  they  were  willing,  like  other 
poor  people,  to  save  all  the  fragments  they  could  fcr 
their  families  at  home.  The  chief  scene,  also,  like  all 


3/6  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

thaumaturgic  displays  when  once  comprehended,  be- 
comes supremely  simple  in  this  common-sense  light. 
Let  us  endeavor  to  grasp  the  outlines  of  the  scene  of 
the  miracle.  The  fish  and  bread  provided  for  the  occa- 
sion is  either  still  remaining  below  hatches  on  their  ves- 
sel, where  one  man  can  stand  and  hand  out  baskets  full 
of  rations,  and  refill  the  baskets  when  their  contents 
were  distributed  : — the  stock  of  food  being  invisible  to 
those  who  were  not  looking  down  the  hatches  or  below 
the  boat  deck.  Or,  if  you  choose,  those  fishermen  have 
selected  some  small  cave  or  concealed  angle  or  each/  on 
the  shore  (with  every  inch  of  which  they  were  so  famil- 
iar) as  a  place  for  the  stowa  land  concealment  of  their 
provisions — a  natural  convenience  which  has  probably 
determined  the  selection  of  that  particular  spot  for  their 
meeting.  Here,  as  at  the  vessel,  the  provisions  could 
only  be  seen  as  they  were  handed  out  by  the  distributor, 
by  those  who  were  seated,  or  even  standing,  at  a  little 
distance  from  them.  The  people  are  not  allowed  to 
stroll  round  and  pry  into  the  operations  "behind  the 
curtain."  All  this  has  been  taken  care  of.  Before  the 
operations  commenced,  the  people  were  all  seated  on  the 
ground  at  a  place  and  distance  selected  by  the  performers. 
They  were  probably  indefinitely  divided  off,  by  the  eye, 
into  twelve  squads ;  one  to  be  waited  on  by  each  disci- 
ple, for  the  sake  of  preventing  confusion  ;  the  squads 
numbering  between  fifty  and  a  hundred,  and  making  an 
assembly  of  nearer  one,  than  five,  thousand  people.  No 
one  can  see  the  operation  called  miraculous,  nor  was 
any  one  invited  to  inspect  it,  nor  was  there  any  proceed- 
ing which  was  not  under  the  direction  and  control  of 
the  performers.  The  people  were  ordered  to  be  seated 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  377 

in  such  manner  as  suited  the  managers,  and  they  there 
eat  what  was  brought  to  them  and  believed  what  was 
told  them.  Beyond  this,  so  far  as  the  accounts  them- 
selves show,  they  neither  did,  nor  saw  anything.  The 
only  marvel  to  them  was — how  so  much  provision  came 
there.  It  was  unexpected.  They  were  allowed  to  hear 
a  brief  dialogue  between  the  performers  about  there 
being  but  "  five  loaves  and  two  little  fishes  "  and  to  wit- 
ness the  stereotyped  "  astonishment "  of  the  assistants 
at  the  wonderful  proposal  of  their  master,  by  way  of  re- 
minder and  example  of  the  real  astonishment  they  them- 
selves ought  to  feel  at  the  results.  In  other  words,  they 
were  indirectly  told  that  there  were  but  two  fishes  and 
five  loaves  of  bread  present,  through  means  of  this  confi- 
dential cha't  among  the  actors  ;  and  they  never  thought 
of  questioning  and  examining  as  to  the  truth  of  the  mat- 
ter. Such  a  crowd  of  ignorant,  undeveloped  and  hungry 
people  listen,  and  gape,  and  wonder,  and  believe,  and 
eat :  they  do  not  question,  criticize  or  investigate. 
Even  now,  when  a  mere  juggler  steps  upon  the  stage 
(as  I  have  witnessed),  and  says  he  holds  a  pack  of  cards 
in  his  hands,  no  one  stops  to  suspect  that  they  are  not 
an  ordinary  pack  of  cards.  And,  when  he  allows  them 
to  select  any  card  from  the  pack  and  then  tells  them 
that  it  is  the  "  five  of  clubs,"  they  wonder  how  he  pos- 
sibly could  know  it.  But  their-  astonishment  is  still 
greater,  at  their  own  stupidity,  when  the  performer,  who 
has  agreed  to  expose  his  own  tricks,  shows  them  the 
cards,  and  they  find  that  they  are  not  an  ordinary  pack 
of  cards,  but  are  all  "  fives  of  clubs."  The  gaping  crowd 
rarely  think  about  the  matter  other  than  they  are  told, 
and  when  they  try  to  do  so  they  always  think  too  late  or 


378  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

at  the  wrong  place.  They  usually  allow  the  real  source 
of  the  deception  to  pass  before  they  are  aroused  to  think 
at  all. 


This  miracle  has  been  thus  noticed  at  some  length, 
not  only  on  account  of  its  apparent  magnitude  and  the 
numbers  present,  but  chiefly  on  account  of  the  light 
which  it  throws  upon  the  political  schemes  and  move- 
ments of  Jesus.  These  must  now  be  gathered,  indeed, 
from  the  Gospels ;  but  they  must  be  gathered  in  defi- 
ance, as  it  were,  of  the  purposes  of  their  authors.  After 
the  utter  and  contemptible  failure  of  the  efforts  of  Jesus 
to  become  "  King  of  the  Jew's,"  and  after  they  had 
brought  him  to  an  ignominious  crucifixion  for  attempt- 
ing it,  there  was  no  longer  a  possibility  of  defending  his 
pretensions  to  be  the  Messiah — the  triumphant  succes- 
sor of  the  royal  David,  whom  the  Jews  were  expecting. 
To  speak  of  these  efforts  and  pretensions  was  to  bring 
up  a  picture  of  humiliating  failure,  ridicule  and  disgrace 
— a  failure  over  which  Jesus  had,  himself,  wept.  The 
only  hope  left,  rested  on  his  supposed  resurrection. 
The  new  assurance  "of  immortality  which  this  was  sup- 
posed to  furnish,  and  his  moral,  religious  and  popular 
social  doctrines  were  the  elements  upon  which  the  sub- 
sequent church  and  faith  were  built.  It  became  neces- 
sary, thenceforth,  to  ignore,  suppress  or  modify  all  his 
political  aspirations,  purposes  and  movements,  as  far  as 
it  was  possible  for  them  to  do  so  ;  and  to  remould  his 
life,  character,  designs  and  actions  on  the  new  model  cf 
a  " Divine  Saviour"  as  a  substitute  for  the  original  one 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  3/9 

of  an  aspirant  for  the  Messianic  throne  of  Israel,  and 
one  who  had  openly  disclaimed  having  a  mission  to  any 
people  save  the  Israelites.  Hence  it  is  that  his  early 
boyish  life  and  manhood  are  wholly  ignored,  and  that  we 
have  no  connected  account  of  his  public  life  and  pur- 
poses, but  only  disjointed  fragments  of  them, — mainly 
such  as  were  deemed  necessary  or  proper  to  the  intro- 
duction of  his  teachings  and  miracles  and  to  show  his 
known  and  final  fate.  Thus  the  whole  latter  part  of  a 
public  career  which  was  devoted  to  the  attainment  of 
the  throne  of  Judea,  and  which  culminated  in  his  tri- 
umphal entry  into  Jerusalem  as  "  King  of  the  Jews  "  and 
his  crucifixion  for  this  very  act  of  treason  against  the 
Roman  government,  upon  his  own  confession,  is  only 
known  to  us  as  it  can  be  gathered  from  such  fragments 
as  it  was  deemed  necessary  to  relate  for  other  purposes 
and  such  facts  or  incidents  as  it  was  found  difficult,  or 
deemed  unnecessary,  to  suppress  or  change.  Hence  it 
is,  that  his  emissaries,  twelve  at  one  time  and  seventy 
at  another,  traversed  all  Palestine  to  arouse  and  prepare 
the  people  to  accept  and  support  his  claims  to  the  Mes- 
siahship,  and  yet  we  hear  nothing  of  their  manoeuvres 
or  successes — have  only  silence.  Hence  it  is,  that  we 
learn  of  his  having  secret  friends  among  the  ruling  and 
political  classes,  but  have  no  mention  of  their  names, 
their  purposes  or  their  actions,  save  the  incidental  and 
necessary  mention  of  Nicodemus  and  Joseph  of  Ari- 
mathea  in  the  trial  and  crucifixion  scenes  : — the  revolu- 
tionists who  had  anything  to  lose,  having  kept  behind 
the  curtain.  Hence  it  is,  that  we  have  no  regular  expo- 
sition or  discussion  of  his  plans  and  movements,  but 
only  unexplained  and  disconnected  transactions.  To  have 


3&O  JESUS   AND   RELIGION. 

given  such,  would  necessarily  have  exposed  what  it  had 
become  all-important  to  ignore  and  conceal — namely,  his 
politico-religious  aspirations,  efforts  and  failures.  Hence 
it  is,  also,  that,  in  mentioning  such  scenes  as  this  politico- 
religious  meeting  for  the  sake  of  getting  the  benefit  of 
the  miracle,  their  accounts  are  so  meagre  and  unexplan- 
story,  and  that  they  attempt  to  put  a  face  upon  the 
matter  which  is  so  incongruous  and  unnatural — which  is 
so  evidently  a  mere  mask.  They  were  really  unable  to 
appropriate  the  transaction  and  mould  or  weave  the  real 
facts  and  conditions  to  fit  their  new  theory  of  Jesus  and 
his  character  and  designs  ;  and,  in  attempting  to  do  so, 
have  only  succeeded  in  throwing  together  an  inconsist- 
ent and  incongruous  story  which  equally  fails  to  satisfy 
us  or  to  cover  the  true  skeleton  of  the  facts  and  purposes 
which  they  expose.  That  we  have  sufficient  left  us  to 
recover  the  clue  to  the  main  purposes,  causes,  conditions 
and  acts,  is  owing,  not  alone  to  the  inherent  difficulty  of 
adapting  old  and  real  facts  to  a  new  and  false  set  of 
characters,  motives  and  purposes,  but  also  to  a  want  of 
skill  and  capacity  in  the  writers  themselves,  as  well  as 
to  their  own  inability  to  perceive  their  inconsistencies 
and  exposures,  and  to  a  carelessness  arising  from  their 
knowledge  of  the  credulous  and  uncritical  classes  for 
whom  they  then  wrote,  and  of  the  utter  unlikelihood  of 
their  either  questioning  or  investigating  their  statements 
or  conclusions.  From  the  stand-point  they  would  im- 
pose upon  the  reader,  their  accounts  are  wholly  incon- 
gruous and  incomprehensible  and  often  inconsistent  and 
contradictory. 

Fourteenth.      As   the   disciples   returned   from   this 
same  meeting  by  water,  night  and  storm  overtook  them ; 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  38! 

and  they  were  compelled  to  row  lustily  against  the  surf 
as  they  approached  their  accustomed  landing.  Here 
Jesus,  who  had  returned  by  land,  awaited  their  approach. 
We  are  apt  to  be  deceived  by  the  mode  of  stating  the  facts 
in  this  case,  unless  we  take  the  pains  to  analyze  them. 
John  says  that  "  they  saw  Jesus  walking  on  the  sea."  It 
is  said,  again,  that  "  when  they  had  rowed  about  five  and 
twenty,  or  thirty  furlongs,  they  see  Jesus  walking  on  the 
sea,  and  drawing  nigh  unto  the  ship."  We  could  infer 
by  this  language  that  they  saw  him  out  that  distance  in 
the  lake  and  where  none  could  approach  them  save  by 
water.  Matthew  tells  us,  also,  that  Peter  attempted  to 
walk  on  the  water  to  where  Jesus  was  standing,  but  was 
only  rescued  from  sinking  by  the  hand  of  Jesus.  Mark 
impresses  us  with  a  different  conception.  He  says  that 
"  the  ship  was  in  the  'midst  of  the  sea,  and  Jesus  alone 
upon  the  land.  And  he  saw  them  toiling  in  rowing  :  for 
the  wind  was  contrary  unto  them  :  and  about  the  fourth 
watch  of  the  night  he  cometh  unto  them  walking  upon 
the  sea,  and  would  have  passed  them.  But  when  they 
saw  him  walking  on  the  sea,  they  supposed  it  had  been  a 
spirit  and  cried  out :  For  they  all  saw  him  and  were 
troubled.  Be  of  good  cheer :  it  is  I ;  be  not  afraid. 
And  he  went  up  unto  them  in  the  ship :  and  the  wind 
ceased.  And  they  were  sore  amazed  in  themselves  be- 
yond measure  and  wondered.  For  they  considered  not 
the  miracle  of  the  loaves,  for  their  hearts  were  hardened" 
None  mention  Peter's  mishap  except  Matthew,  while 
Luke  ignores  the  whole  matter  as  unworthy  of  notice. 
As  the  matter  would  now  stand,  we  should  be  at  a  loss, 
not  only  to  account  for  the  alleged  miracle,  but  to  form 
any  conception  of  where  the  boat  was.  Mark  has  it  in 


382  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

the  "  midst  of  the  sea,"  while  Jesus  saw  them  from  the 
land.  Now,  at  the  "  fourth  watch  "  of  so  stormy  a  night 
as  this,  they  must  have  been  almost  at  the  very  shore  to 
have  enabled  a  person  on  land  to  see  them,  and  especially 
when  they  could  talk  back  and  forth.  But  we  are 
again  relieved  by  John.  After  using  the  general  terms 
quoted,  he  tells  us  that  when  Jesus  came  aboard  "  imme- 
diately the  ship  was  at  the  land  whither  they  went" 
The  obscurity  clears  up  as  we  read  this  last  sentence 
and  take  it  in  connection  with  Mark's  account.  The 
words  of  John  are  positive  and  unequivocal  that,  "  im- 
mediately" upon  Jesus  jumping  aboard,  they  were,  not 
only  at  land,  but  at  their  own  landing.  What  an  in- 
sight does  this  give  us  into  this  ancient  miracle-making 
and  into  the  reliability  of  the  Gospel  accounts  of  them  ! 
Here  were  these  ignorant  and  superstitious  fishermen 
.  battling  with  the  storm,  the  waves,  and  the  grim  night, 
while  the  darkness  shrouds  the  land  towards  which  they 
struggle,  and  which  they  at  last  almost  touch.  They  are 
so  near  that,  even  in  that  tempestuous  night,  they  can  see 
their  master  on  the  shore, — his  form  rising  above  the 
waves  and  towards  the  dim  upper  light,  while  the  beach 
or  shore  on  which  he  stands,  as  well  as  his  feet  or  low- 
er extremities,  are  invisible — are  perhaps  even  below  the 
line  of  waves  and  spray,  and  even  his  upper  form  is  too 
dim  and  ghostly  to  be  recognized.  He  is  standing  or 
walking  out  on  to  their  usual  landing,  a  fact  which  they 
seem  not  to  have  perceived,  as  yet.  He  probably  came 
out  on  the  mole  or  jetty  at  the  landing,  with  the  waves 
lashing  his  feet.  But,  as  the  boat  was  nearing  the  shore 
(and  whether  he  were  standing  or  walking)  it  might  well 
seem,  in  the  darkness,  that  he  was  approaching  them, 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  383 

while,  in  fact,  it  was  the  boat  that  was  approaching  him. 
This  dim  and  spray-surrounded  form  looks  so  ghostlyas 
to  frighten  them :  until  he  speaks  to  them  and  re-assures 
them.  Peter,  imagining  him  to  be  walking  on  the  water, 
concludes  to  try  it  himself,  but  Jesus  is  compelled  to 
'  reach  out  and  drag  him  from  the  water.  Peter,  however, 
found  no  further  difficulty  when  he  was  once  dragged  up 
to  where  Jesus  was  standing,  nor  in  getting  aboard  again 
from  that  point,  as  the  boat  approached  still  nearer. 
Immediately  after  Jesus  and  Peter  jumped  aboard,  the 
boat  struck  the  landing.  Under  such  circumstances  it 
is  not  at  all  improbable  that  Jesus  appeared  to  his  dis- 
ciples to  be  walking  on  the  water,  nor  is  it  wonderful, 
that,  believing  as  they  did,  they  actually  thought  he  was 
doing  so.  For,  although  we  are  told  by  the  narrator 
that  they  were  astounded  at  his  performance  notwith- 
standing they  were  just  returning  from  the  stupendous 
creation  of  "loaves  and  fishes  " — their  hearts  being  hard- 
ened on  that  subject,  still  these  men  could  not  divest 
themselves  of  their  daily  belief  in  his  supernatural  pow- 
ers. And  that  they  did  not  do  so  here  is  shown  by  the 
instant  faith  of  Peter  that  he  could  do  it  himself  through 
the  power  of  Jesus.  With  their  faith  in  Jesus,  the  de- 
lusive appearances  would  at  once  be  set  down  as  real, 
and  as  due  to  his  miraculous  power.  That  he  should 
have  so  appealed  to  them,  in  the  storm,  darkness,  con- 
fusion and  fright, — or  even  without  confusion  and  fright, 
— is  neither  unnatural  nor  singular.  So  that  we  are 
driven  to  account  for  this  phenomenon  by  natural  causes, 
and,  perhaps,  by  the  effect  upon  their  story  about  it  of 
that  singularly  oblivious  process,  so  frequent  with  these 
disciples,  of  having  their  "  hearts  hardened." 


3^4  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

Fifteenth.  We  next  have  (ch.  xv.)  the  alleged  heal- 
ing of  the  daughter  of  the  woman  of  Canaan,  on  the 
cpasts  of  Tyre  and  Sidon.  While  passing  through  this 
country,  on  his  way  home,  this  woman  pertinaciously 
followed  him,  beseeching  him  to  heal  her  daughter, 
whom  she  declared  to  be  "  vexed  with  a  devil."  He  de- 
clined to  listen  to  her  appeal,  and  said  that  he  was  "  not 
sent  but  to  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel."  To 
her  further  appeal  he  replied  :  "  It  is  not  meet  to  take 
the  children's  bread  and  cast  it  to  the  dogs."  Her  per- 
tinacity, humility  and  faith,  however,  finally  won  from 
him  the  expression — "  Be  it  unto  thee  as  thou  wilt ;  " 
and  then  he  straightway  "departed  from  thence,  and 
came  nigh  unto  the  sea  of  Galilee."  The  writer,  how- 
ever, adds  that  the  daughter  "  was  made  whole  from  that 
very  hour."  But  this  is,  palpably,  but  a  mere  conclusion 
or  inference  drawn  from  the  fact  that  Jesus  intimated  a 
purpose  to  satisfy  the  mother,  for  the  girl  was  not  pres- 
ent, nor  did  they  go  back  to  see  her ;  nor,  so  far  as  the 
account  tends  to  show,  did  they  ever  hear  from  her 
again,  but  continued  "straightway"  on  to  their  own 
country.  Such  cases  are  too  puerile  for  comment. 

This  scene,  however,  called  forth  an  important  ex- 
pression of  the  feelings  of  Jesus  towards  the  Gentiles 
and  his  opinion  of  the  extent  of  his  own  mission  : — views 
and  feelings  which  are  amply  corroborated  elsewhere,  but 
nowhere  more  directly  and  pungently  expressed.  We 
here  learn  that  Jesus  did  not  regard  himself  as  sent  to 
any  but  the  Israelites,  or  as  having  anything  to  do  with 
the  Gentile  "  dogs,"  who  now  worship  him  as  a  God. 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES..  385 

Sixteenth.  In  the  fifteenth  chapter  we  are  treated, 
also,  to  a  new,  but  strikingly  similar  story  about  "  loaves 
and  fishes."  The  people  are  said  to  have  come  out  into 
a  mountain  to  meet  Jesus,  and  he  performed  on  their 
sick.  After  having  remained  there  three  days  without 
food,  it  is  said  that  Jesus  had  "compassion  "  on  them, 
and  would  not  send  them  away  fasting,  "lest  they  faint 
on  the  way."  t  We  find  the  same  little  prologue  per- 
formed  by  and  between  Jesus  and  his  assistants,  as  we 
did  in  the  former  miracle,  about  there  being  only  a  few 
loaves  and  fishes.  We  find  the  hearts  of  the  disciples 
again  so  "  hardened,"  that  they  forgot  the  recent  feeding 
of  the  multitude  and  the  daily  miracles  they  witnessed, 
and  promptly  expressed  their  usual  profound  "  astonish- 
ment "  at  the  proposal  of  their  master,  although  there 
was  more  food  and  fewer  people  than  before.  And  yet 
they  are  there  ready  to  seat,  arrange  and  wait  upon  the 
people  as  before;  and  after  they  were  again  "filled," 
they  are  ready  with  their  baskets,  as  of  yore,  to  save  the 
fragments. 


This  meeting  and  feeding  the  people  in  secret  is  a 
part  of  the  same  programme  we  considered  when  review- 
ing the  other  and  larger  meeting.  It  differed,  perhaps, 
— in  being  more  of  a  neighborhood  affair,  with  fewer 
strangers  from  "  all  cities."  We  cannot  suppose  that  we 
have  anything  like  a  correct  statement  of  the  real  pur- 
poses and  proceedings.  If  Jesus  could  cure  diseases  by 
divine  power — by  merely  willing  them  cured,  it  would 
be  assuming  a  gratuitous  cruelty  in  him  to  suppose  that 

25 


386  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

he  would  keep  many  thousand  men,  women  and  children 
(a  large  proportion  of  whom  were  invalids)  out  in  the 
mountains  for  three  days,  waiting  for  a  cure.  It  is  still 
more  monstrous  to  talk  of  his  "compassion"  for  the 
people,  after  he  had  kept  them  three  days  without  food, 
and  only  gave  it,  then,  lest  they  should  "  faint "  on  their 
way  home,  and  when  his  bare  word  would  have  healed 
the  whole  lot,  and  filled  every  stomach  with  appropriate 
food  just  as  easy  as  he  could  create  one  ounce  of  bread- 
There  must  be  some  mistake  in  the  account :  Jesus 
could  not  have  been  guilty  of  such  cruelty — certainly 
not  to  those  who  trusted  him.  Nor  is  it  possible  to  be- 
lieve that  such  a  crowd  could  be  induced  to  remain  out 
in  the  mountain  three  days  without  shelter  or  food,  as  is 
here  stated.  The  whole  thing  is  incredible. 

Nor  can  one  read  this  puerile  narrative  without  receiv- 
ing some  very  suggestive  hints.  For  example  :  the  delay 
or  time  required  in  effecting  his  cures  suggests,  at  once, 
that  they  required  some  special  process,  however  simple, 
to  produce  them.  Had  the  power  been  a  divine  one 
and  his  object  a  display  of  that  power,  it  would  evidently 
have  been  both  more  appropriate  and  more  effective  if 
he  had  healed  the  whole  multitude  by  a  wave  of  the 
hand.  We  are  again  struck  by  that  most  significant 
fact,  that  the  divine  power  of  Jesus  to  create  food  was 
limited  to  two  kinds — fish  and  bread;  and  that  this  sim- 
ple diet  of  fish  and  bread  was  just  the  kind  of  food  that 
his  disciples  and  their  families  could  furnish  in  quantity, 
and  the  only  kinds.  On  this  occasion,  after  a  three  days' 
fast,  especially  by  feeble  invalids,  one  is  tempted  to  re- 
gret that  the  starving  multitude  could  not  have  had  a 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  387 

warmer  and  more  tempting  fare  than  cold  fish  and  bread. 
And  again  we  are  struck  with  the  economy  of  saving 
cold  fish  fragments  from  off  the  ground  by  fishermen 
whose  master  could,  not  only  miraculously  multiply 
fishes  indefinitely,  but  could  give  them  a  miraculous 
"draft"  of  them  from  the  sea  at  pleasure;  and  are 
equally  struck  with  the  opportune  presence  of  those 
wonderful  baskets,  which  always  follow  them,  whether 
by  sea  or  land,  to  these  fish-lunchings,  and  always  appear 
just  at  scrap-time,  when  there  was  no  other  possible  use 
for  them,  and  when  even  this  use  was  a  wholly  unex- 
pected and  surprising  event  to  their  owners.  Here, 
also,  we  observe  that  the  people  are  all  seated,  and  ar- 
ranged to  suit  the  operators,  before,  and  during,  and  at 
the  time  of  the  operations,  and  that  they  are  neither  in- 
vited to  see,  nor  are  said  to  have  seen,  the  miraculous 
part  of  the  performance  ;  nor  do  we  find  the  people  de- 
siring to  see  it,  or  uniting  in  the  astonishment  which 
was  so  freshly  and  freely  exhibited  by  those  young  tyroes 
— the  disciples  ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  we  find  them  sit 
down  as  ordered,  and  pay  attention  to  eating  their  cold 
fish  and  bread  just  as  if  they  had  been  cooked  by 
the  families  of  the  disciples  and  been  brought  up  by 
the  disciples  themselves  in  those  mysterious,  but  con- 
venient baskets  ;  and,  when  they  are  done  eating,  we 
find  them  going  right  off  as  they  were  directed,  with- 
out offering  to  make  the  least  inspection  or  investi- 
gation and  as  if  nothing  unusual  had  happened.  The 
disciples  seem  to  have  had  a  monopoly  of  all  the  miracle, 
seeing  and  all  the  "  amazement."  I  had  rather  have  the 
confidential  opinion 'of  "Peter's  mother-in-law"  upon 
these  two  fish-dinners  than  any  one's  I  can  now  think  of. 


388  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

Seventeenth.  In  the  seventeenth  chapter  we  have 
the  Transfiguration.  This  purports  to  be  rather  a  mir- 
acle about,  than  by,  Jesus.  As  there  are  some  reasons 
to  believe  that  it  is  a  mythic  legend  based  upon  an 
actual  secret  meeting  of  Jesus,  and  as  it  is  characteristic 
of  his  methods  and  proceedings,  it  may  be  proper  to 
pay  some  attention  to  it.  The  narrative  may  be  entirely 
mythic,  emanating  from  an  endeavor  to  appropriate  the 
Mosaic  type  of  the  transfiguration  on  Mount  Sinai  and 
to  fulfil  the  prophecy  about  the  coming  of  Elias  and 
"that  prophet."  The  meeting  with  two  friends  and 
coadjutors  at  night,  in  profound  secrecy  and  by  appoint- 
ment, constitutes  its  real,  and  perhaps  only  basis  in 
fact,  if  it  had  any.  John,  who  was  the  only  one  of  the 
Evangelists  who  could  know  anything  about  it,  does  not 
even  mention  it.  Luke,  who  knew  nothing  about  it> 
gives  us  the  most  suggestive  account  of  it : — we  cannot 
say  the  clearest,  for  there  is  nothing  clear  about  either 
account.  He  says,  that  Jesus  "took  Peter  and  John 
and  James  and  went  up  into  a  mountain  to  pray,  and,  as 
he  prayed,  the  fashion  of  his  countenance  was  altered 
and  his  raiment  was  white  and  glistening.  And  behold, 
there  talked  with  him  two  men,  which  were  Moses  and 
Elias  :  who  appeared  in  glory,  and  spake  of  his  decease 
which  should  be  accomplished  at  Jerusalem.  But  Peter 
and  they  that  were  with  him  were  heavy  with  sleep : 
and  when  they  were  awake,  they  saw  his  glory,  and  the 
two  men  that  stood  with  him."  From  this  account  it 
would  seem  that  Jesus  selected  his  three  favorite  and 
most  trusted  disciples  to  accompany  him ;  that  the 
place  of  meeting  was  on  a  mountain  ;  that  it  occurred  in 
the  night  time;  that  the  three  disciples  were  not 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES  389 

present  at,  or  intended  to  be  trusted  with,  the  conference 
that  occurred,  although  within  sight  of  the  parties.  It 
appears  that  they  were  all  asleep  when  the  meeting 
took  place,  and  neither  saw  the  two  men  come,  nor 
heard  the  conference ;  and  that,  "  when  they  awoke,"  so 
far  as  they  tell  us  of  their  own  knowledge,  "  they  saw 
his  glory  and  the  two  men  that  were  with  him." 
This  was  all  they  saw.  As  'to  who  the  men  were, 
how  they  came  or  where  they  went  or  what  their  pur- 
pose was  or  what  they  said,  they  had  no  knowledge. 
How  could  they  tell  that  it  was  Moses  and  Elias  ? 
Neither  Jesus,. nor  the  men  themselves  said  so;  and,  if 
they  had,  it  would  be  no  proof  of  the  fact.  The  whole 
of  the  matter,  except,  perhaps,  the  meeting  and  their 
waking  up  and  seeing  the  men  in  conference  with  Jesus, 
is  probably  a  subsequent  mythic  adaptation. 

It  is  not  impossible  that  the  parties  had  lit  a  small 
fire  while  the  disciples  slept,  and  that  its  smoke  settled 
above  and  around  them  and  its  light  fell  upon  Jesus  in 
a  "glistening"  manner  which  surprised  the  disciples  on 
waking  out  of  sleep.  It  is  not  wholly  impossible,  also, 
that  Jesus  or  his  friends  may  have  spoke  some  words 
calculated  to  mislead  the  superstitious  minds  of  the  dis- 
ciples :  for  it  is  clear  that  Jesus  and  these  men  were,  to 
the  last  degree,  desirous  of  keeping  their  meeting  a  pro- 
found secret,  and  to  keep  even  these  "chosen  three" 
from  knowing  either  the  men  or  their  purposes.  Some 
such  facts  would  account  for  what  Luke  afterwards 
says,  namely  :  "  There  was  a  cloud  and  it  overshadowed 
them,  and  they  feared  as  they  entered  into  the  cloud, 
and  there  came  a  voice  out  of  the  cloud,  saying,  this 


39O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

is  my  beloved  son :  hear  him."  This  language  is  too 
indentical  with  other  mythic  annunciations  to  allow  us 
much  doubt  of  its  subsequent  origin,  and  is,  with  all  the 
balance  (save  the  meeting  and  possibly  the  fire)  of 
after  and  mythic  concoction. 

As  to  the  secrecy  required,  we  have  seen  that  Jesus 
only  took  his  three  favorites  and  went  to  this  lonely 
spot  at  night,  without  intimating  the  coming  meeting 
even  to  those  he  took  with  him,  but  left  them  by 
themselves  to  sleep — a  sleep  from  which  he  did  not 
wake  them.  And  Matthew  tells  us,  that  "Jesus  charged 
them,  saying,  tell  the  vision  to  no  man,  until  the  son  of 
man  be  risen  again  from  the  dead ; "  while  Luke  adds, 
that  "  they  kept  it  .close  and  told  no  man  in  those  days 
any  of  the  things  which  they  had  seen." 

Can  any  rational  person  perceive  the  consistency  of 
these  facts,  as  told,  with  the  ideas  now  entertained  of 
Jesus  and  of  his  designs  and  purposes  ?  If  Jesus  was 
what  he  is  claimed  to  be,  Why  did  Moses  and  Elias  meet 
him  at  such  a  place  and  hour  ?  If  it  was  to  fulfil  a 
prophecy  or  type,  Who  were  they  doing  it  for  ?  and, 
How  was  it  to  be  known  ?  That  even  the  three  disciples 
woke  up  in  time  to  see  them  at  all,  was  not  owing  to 
any  act  or  purpose  on  their  part.  And,  even  after  they 
had  gotten  a  glimpse  of  them,  Jesus  tried  to  make  them 
believe  it  was  a  vision,  and  enjoined  the  strictest 
secrecy  upon  them  during  his  life.  For  whose  benefit, 
we  repeat,  Was  this  profoundly-kept-secret  ?  Who 
profited  by  that  voice  from  the  cloud  ?  The  three  dis- 
ciples already  believed  in  Jesus,  and  "  heard  "  him  every 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  39! 

day  with  blind  faith,  and  believed  everything  he  said,  as 
they  did  here.  Why  not  have  had  this  meeting  with 
Moses  and  Elias  and  this  voice  of  God  from  the  cloud 
and  all  this  "glistening"  and  transfiguration  on  Mount 
Moriah  in  the  presence  of  the  Sanhedrim  and  the 
assembled  priests  and  people,  instead  of  at  night  on  this 
lonely  mountain  of  Galilee  ?  Why  seal  the  matter  from 
all  human  beings  until  after  his  death  ?  If  they  were 
signs  and  recognitions  of  his  Messiahship  ought  they 
not  to  have  been  known  to  those  to  whom  the  Messiah 
was  to  be  sent  ?  Of  what  use  was  the  whole  affair  ?  Is 
this  the  conduct  of  Moses  and  Elias,  of  the  Son  of  God, 
and  of  God  himself,  in  endeavoring  to  make  known  a 
Divine  Saviour  of  the  World  and  the  Messiah  of  the 
Jews  ?  Or,  is  it  the  secret  and  preconcerted  meeting  of 
men  engaged  in  some  common  purpose  whose  exposure 
was  to  the  last  degree  dangerous  ?  If  Jesus  met  these 
men,  must  it  not  have  been  for  the  same  purpose  that 
he  had  met  the  multitude  in  private  and  in  secret  places 
— the  desert  and  the  mountain  ?  Were  not  these  two  of 
his  powerful  but  secret  friends — (say,  Nicodemus  and 
Joseph  of  Arimathea,) — come  from  Jerusalem  to  secretly 
consult  with  him  upon  his  future  plans  and  movements, 
and  to  whom  it  would  be  ruin  to  be  found  engaged  in 
such  conferences  with  him  ?  For  John  says  that  Nico- 
demus did  come  and  meet  Jesus  at  night,  and  as  it 
would  be  clearly  inferred,  the  meeting  was  in  Galilee — 
(ch.  iii.).  If  the  meeting  took  place  at  all,  is  not  this 
the  most  rational  solution,  if  not  the  only  rational  one  ? 
As  long  as  Jesus  was  alive  and  could  be  a  pretender  to 
the  throne  of  Israel,  the  divulging  of  such  a  meeting 
would  be  dangerous  to  these  influential  confederates ; 


392  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

and  hence  the  necessity  for  secrecy  until  after  the  death 
of  Jesus.  Looking  upon  it  as  a  secret  revolutionary 
meeting  involving  the  ruin  of  the  parties  concerned,  we 
can  understand,  not  only  the  injunction  of  secrecy  and 
its  limitation,  but  can  understand  any  little  efforts 
deemed  neccessary  to  delude  the  ignorant  disciples  as 
to  the  true  persons  and  purposes.  As  a  divine  recog- 
nition of  Jesus  the  whole  matter  would  not  only  be 
absurdly  useless  and  uselessly  absurd,  but  would  smack 
of  divine  fraud  and  bad  faith. 


Eighteenth.  In  the  seventeenth  chapter  we  have  an 
account  of  his  healing  a  lunatic  and  rebuking  the  devil, 
— a  case  which  his  disciples  were  unable  to  manage. 
This  is  one  of  those  cases  which  are  so  generally  stated 
as  to  give  nothing  but  the  general  facts  of  lunacy  and 
cure,  and  which,  therefore,  furnish  no  means  of  judging 
what  was,  or  what  was  not,  done  ;  and  can  need  no 
further  comment  than  has  been  given  in  like  cases. 
The  peculiarity  about  the  case  is  found  in  the  fact  of 
the  failure  of  his  disciples  to  relieve  the  patient,  and 
m's  attributing  their  failure  to  their  own  lack  of  faith, 
and  in  his  declaration  that  even  mountains  could  be  re- 
moved by  faith,  and  his  assertion  that  demoniac  cases  of 
this  kind  "goeth  not  out  but  by  prayer  and  fasting.'"' 
That  is,  that  the  nervous  or  magnetic  power  must  be 
exerted  with  an  energy  of  will  only  compatible  with  a 
sanguine  faith,  and,  in  certain  cases,  requires  to  be  ex- 
alted by  prayer  and  abstinence. 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  393 

Nineteenth.  In  the  seventeenth  chapter  we  also 
have  the  miracle  of  the  tribute  money.  The  payment 
of  the  Roman  tax  was  a  sore  humiliation  to  the  Jews, 
and  Jesus  was  charged  with  opposing  its.  payment.  In 
this  instance  the  tax  collector  applied  to  Peter  to  know 
if  they  paid  tribute  money ;  and,  upon  Peter's  replying  in 
the  affirmative,  Jesus  "prevented"  him,  and  contested 
the  right  of  the  Romsrig  to  tax  him  ',  but  then  concluded 
as  follows:  "  Notwithst(H)^ug,  lest  we  should  offend 
them,  go  thou  to  the  sea,  and  cast  an  hook,  and  take  up 
the  fish  that  first  cometh  up  ;  and  when  thou  hast  opened 
its  mouth,  thou  shall  find  a  piece  of  money:  that  take 
and  give  unto  them  for  me  and  thee."  Whether  Jesus 
really  meant  to  pay  the  tribute,  and,  in  this  figurative 
style  told  his  fisherman-follower  to  go  and  catch  a  fish 
and,  with  the  money  that  it  would  bring  when  sold,  pay 
their  mite  of  tribute,  or  whether  he  spoke  ironically  or 
jestingly — as  if  he  were  to  say  (after  denying  their 
.  right),  "  rather  than  offend  these  worthies,  however,  you 
can  give  them  the  money  you  find  in  the  mouth  of  the 
first  fish  you  catch,"  it  is  difficult  to  say.  Nor  is  it 
probable  that  we  have  the  actual  words  of  Jesus :  nor, 
had  we  them,  is  it  at  all  important  to  construe  them ; 
since  we  have  not  the  slightest  intimation  given  us  that 
Peter  ever  either  found  the  money  or  caught  the  fish  or 
went  to  catch  it  or  ever  seriously  thought  of  going  on 
such  a  preposterous  errand.  It  is  bad  enough  for  us  to 
accept  the  unsupported  and  credulous  conclusions  of  the 
Evangelists  that  a  miracle  was  actually  performed  be- 
cause Jesus  ordered  it,  without  assuming  them  ourselves 
when  even  the  Evangelists  do  not.  And  yet,  so  strong 
is  this  tendency,  even  now,  that  there  is  not  one  out  of 


394  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

every  million  of  Christians,  that  would  ever  even  notice 
the  fact  that  there  is  not  a  word  about  the  performance  of 
a  miracle  in  this  entire  account.  They  take  the  entire 
miraculous  performance  for  granted.  Would  they  do  so 
in  the  -ease  of  a  story  about  Mahomet  ?  If  Jesus  had 
been  sued  for  the  tribute  money  or  any  other  debt,  and 
had  replied  that  he  had  told  Peter  to  go  and  catch  a  fish 
and  get  the  money  that-  wa?  in  ^  mouth  and  pay  it, — 
Would  they  allow  that  at>  ^  __f  of  payment,  without  a 
word  of  evidence  that  Peter  ever  went,  or  even  intended 
to  go  a  fishing  at  all  ? 


Twentieth.  This  is  an  account  of  a  case  of  lunacy 
and  fits.  As  the  case  is  more  specifically  reported  in 
Mark  we  may,  at  once,  use  his  account  here.  A  boy 
was  subject  to  fits  in  which  he  fell  down  foaming. 
Jesus  was  present  when  he  was  in  one  of  these  fits,  and 
commanded  the  devil  to  come  out  of  him.  But  the 
devil  didn't  come  !  and  the  fit  continued  to  work  its 
course,  until  it  was  exhausted  and  the  boy  lay  exhausted 
and  as  if  dead,  in  spite  of  Jesus  !  When  the  fit  had 
thus  run  its  course  and  left  the  boy  lay  prostrate,  Jesus 
took  him  by  the  hand  and  raised  him  up.  This  was  all. 
It  is  not  even  intimated  that  Jesus  cured  him  or  that  he 
was  actually  cured.  For  aught  that  appears,  the  boy 
may  have  continued  to  have  fits  every  day  until  he  died 
of  them. 

This  is  hardly  miraculous  enough  to  detain  us,  unless 
we  can  find  some  traces  of  the  miraculous  in  this  un- 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  395 

paralleled  slip  in  exposing  an  actual  failure  of  Jesus  to 
cast  out  a  devil  and  arrest  a  fit. 


Twenty-first.  In  the  twentieth  chapter  we  find  an 
alleged  cure  of  two  blind  men  by  their  faith  and  the 
touching  of  their  eyes.  It  is  impossible,  from  the 
meagre  statements  given,  to  know  what  were  the  men's 
real  diseases  or  what  was  done  to  them.  The  record  does 
not  exclude  either  collusion  or  the  facts  which  would 
make  a  natural  explanation  possible,  nor  does  it  give 
sufficient  details  to  either  verify  the  fact  of  a  miracle  or 
to  suggest  a  true  rendering  of  the  facts  of  the  case. 
And  our  experiences  of  these  brief  statements  have  al- 
ready amply  warned  us  that  their  silence  as  to  adverse 
or  explanatory  facts  is  no  evidence  of  their  non-existence, 
as  we  constantly  find  such  facts  slipping  into  one  Gos- 
pel and  explaining  their  otherwise  inexplicable  state- 
ments, while  in  others  they  are  omitted. 


Twenty-second.  In  the  twenty-first  chapter  we  find 
the  miracle  of  the  blasting  of  the  fig  tree. 

Like  the  miracles  of  the  "  devils  and  the  swine " 
and  that  of  the  "  seven  loaves  and  a  few  little  fishes  " 
this  alleged  blasting  of  the  fig  tree  exhibits  elements 
of  feeling  and  character  which  do  not  speak  well  for  the 
mental  and  moral  condition  of  Jesus,  if  viewed  from  the 


JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

present  stand-point  of  his  followers.     Like  them,  it  pre- 
sents a  spirit  of  wantonness,  injustice  and  cruelty. 

It  is  stated  that  Jesus,  after  having  spent  the  night 
at  Bethany — (the  home  of  his  ardent  friends  Simon  the 
leper,  Lazarus,  Martha  and  Mary) — about  two  miles 
from  Jerusalem,  was  returning  to  the  city  in  the  morn- 
ing and,  of  course,  after  having  had  his  breakfast  among 
his  old  entertainers.  And  yet,  to  make  some  show  of 
an  excuse  for  his  singular  conduct,  we  are  gravely  told 
that,  during  that  walk  of  a  few  minutes,  just  after  break- 
fast, he  "  hungered  ; "  and  that  he  went  to  a  fig  tree  to 
get  figs  to  eat.  Now,  Mark  distinctly  tells  us  that  figs 
were  not  in  season  ;  his  words  being — "  for  the  time  of 
figs  was  not  yet"  We  commence  with  the  fact,  then, 
that  Jesus  got  so  hungry  just  after  breakfast  that  he 
went  to  a  fig  tree  for  figs,  when  he  and  everybody  knew 
that  it  was  not  the  season  or  time  for  figs  ;  and  yet,  be- 
cause he  did  not  find  what  he  could  not,  and  ought  not 
to  have  expected,  he  cursed  the  senseless  tree  for  not 
having  fruit  when  the  "  time  of  figs  was  not  yet,"  so 
that  on  the  next  morning  the  tree  was  found  withered 
and  blasted ! 

We  have  here  a  transaction  which,  were  it  as  now 
represented,  is  painfully  uncommendable.  They  would 
have  us  believe  that  the  Son  of  God — nay,  more,  the  in- 
carnate God  himself,  "  by  whom  all  things  were  made," 
who  fed  thousands  at  his  mere  will,  and  who  had  volun- 
tarily fasted  forty  days,  who  could  make  every  citron, 
olive  and  fig  tree  in  the  land  groan  under  its  weight  of 
ripe  fruit  by  his  mere  volition  and  could  command 
"  forty  legions  of  angels. ''  to  his  assistance, — they  would 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  397 

have  us  believe,  we  say,  that  such  a  Divine  Being  flew 
into  a 'rage  and  cursed  a  senseless  tree  for  not  bearing 
fruit  o nt  of  season — for  being  what  he  had  made  it ! 
There  may  be  millions  of  people  who  can  recognize  their 
God  in  such  a  transaction,  but  they  would  do  well  to 
judge  charitably  of  those  who  fail  to  recognize  these  evi- 
dences of  divinity,  or  even  the  evidences  of  the  agency 
of  a  sane  and  undesigning  man. 

But  may  there  not  have  been  some  hidden  reason 
that  "  us  poor  mortals  "  cannot  understand  ?  There  cer- 
tainly were  secret  reasons  of  which  we  are  not  informed, 
but  there  can  be  none  which  would  convert  this  into  an 
act  of  God,  nor  heighten  our  opinion  of  the  man.  If  we 
are  to  concede  that  Jesus  did  this  thing  in  the  manner 
and  for  the  reasons  stated,  and  not  as  another  mere 
thaumaturgic  effort  to  advance  his  political  schemes  and 
purposes,  then  there  is  no  rational  alternative  but  to  con- 
clude that  the  super-exalted  psychical  states  and  emo- 
tional conditions,  with  which  we  are  already  familiar, 
had  already  advanced  another  step  in  an  unfortunate 
direction.  We  should  never  recognize,  in  this  anathe- 
matizer  of  a  fig  tree,  for  such  a  cause,  the  young  Rabbi 
who  preached  the  "  Sermon  on  the  Mount." 

As  to  the  extent  and  mode  of  its  destruction  we  are 
left  in  the  usual  uncertainty.  The  curse  had  no  imme- 
diate effect  on  the  tree.  For  Matthew's  indefinite, — 
"presently,"  cannot  control  Mark's  specific,  "in  the 
morning,"  that  is,  the  morning  following.  None  of 
them  saw  the  tree  wither,  nor  saw  the  means  used  to 
make  it  wither.  If  it  ever  was  withered  and  "  dried  up 


JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

from  the  roots  "  we  may  rest  assured  there  was  a  natural 
cause  for  its  doing  so,  and  we  may  feel  some  confidence 
that  his  friend,  Lazarus,  knew  exactly  what  that  cause 
was.  A  little  fire  and  straw  would  have  been  quite  effi- 
cient and  could  have  been  promptly  applied  "  as  per 
order  ; "  and  we  shall  have  another  occasion,  very 
shortly,  to  find  how  handy  and  reliable  this  Lazarus 
could  make  himself. 

This  closes  the  miracles  mentioned  in  Matthew, 
occurring  prior  to  the  closing  scenes  of  the  drama. 
There  are  a  few  others  which  appear  to  be  peculiar  to 
other  Gospels  and  which  it  will  be  proper  to  consider. 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  399 


CHAPTER  XII. 

JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES CONTINUED. 

THE  first  miracle  which  we  find  in  Mark,  and  which 
we  do  not  readily  recognize  as  an  acquaintance,  is  found 
in  the  seventh  chapter,  and  consists  of  the  alleged  cure 
of  a  man  who  was  deaf  and  had  an  impediment  in  his 
speech.  The  remedy  of  the  Nazarene  physician  in  this 
case  is  as  singular  as  it  was  simple  and  significant.  It 
is  stated  thus  :  "  Jesus  took  him  aside  from  the  multitude, 
and  put  liis  fingers  in  his  ears  and  he  spit  and  touched  his 
tongtie."  This  is  the  remedy  as  put  by  Mark,  except 
that  he  adds  that,  "  looking  up  into  Heaven  he'  sighed 
and  saith  unto  him  ephata,  that  is,  Be  opened." 

It  can  hardly  be  necessary  to  discuss  the  miracle 
here,  where  the  taint  of  the  "  earth  earthy "  is  so 
grossly  manifest.  Just  what  was  done  we  cannot  tell. 
Yet  enough  is  told  to  show  that  the  performer  did 
not  rely  upon  miraculous  power.  For  it  will  scarcely 
be  contended  that  one  endowed  with  divine  power 
would  heal  a  man  by  taking  him  out  by  himself  and 
poking  his  fingers  in  his  ears  and  rubbing  his  spittle  in 
the  man's  mouth  !  This  was  one  of  those  cases  which 
he  was  unwilling  to  treat  before  witnesses,  and  he  there- 
fore took  the  man  aside  and  operated  on  him  privately, 


4OO  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

and  then  strictly  enjoined  it  upon  him  to  keep  the 
matter  secret,  as  he  had  done,  for  similar  reasons,  in 
other  cases.  But  this  man,  unlike  the  others,  did  not 
stop  at  sounding  his  fame,  but  disclosed  his  remedies, 
also.  The  "  looking  up  into  Heaven  "  and  the  "  sigh- 
ing "  and  the  "  ephata "  might  be  set  down  as  acts  of 
faith  on  the  part  of  Jesus,  but  they  would  be  strikingly 
odorous  of  charlatanism  in  our  day.  His  anxiety  to 
keep  such  remdies  secret  is  very  comprehensible,  as 
they  were  certainly  very  crude  and  very  repulsive  ;  and 
would  greatly  tend  to  destroy  men's  confidence  in  his 
divine  powers.  And  had  the  men  obeyed  his  injunc- 
tion of  secrecy,  we  should  have  had  only  one  of  those 
bald  announcements  of  a  deaf  and  dumb  man  healed  by 
the  "ephata"  alone,  and  been  deprived  of  this  very 
striking  hint  as  to  the  extent  and  nature  of  the  miracu- 
lous cures  of  Jesus.  Miraculous  power  can  require  no 
such  aids  or  remedies  as  were  used  here,  and  when  the 
healer  resorts  to  them  it  is  conclusive  proof  that  he  is 
conscious  of  needing  them.  For  no  man  would  use  such 
repulsive  remedies,  or  any  remedies,  if  he  knew  he  had 
the  power  of  healing  them  by  a  mere  act  of  volition  : — 
much  less  would  he  do  so  where  there  was  a  powerful 
motive  for  convincing  others  that  he  healed  by  divine 
power.  To  use  mere  physical  remedies,  or  to  seek  to 
hide  his  acts  or  remedies,  was  fatal  to  such  pretensions 
as  those  of  Jesus. 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  4OI 

MIRACLES    PECULIAR    TO  LUKE. 

The  first  new  miracle  we  notice  in   Luke,  is  the 
alleged   raising  from  the   the  dead  of   th«  son  of  the 
widow  of  Nain — (ch.  vii.).     This    is  one   of   the   most 
imperfect  and  suspicious   stories  in   the   Gospels.      It 
appears  from  the  account  that,  on  the  evening  of  the  day 
on  which  the  centurion's  servant  was  healed  at  Caper- 
naum, Jesus  was  still  at  the  house  of  Peter,  in  that  place. 
And  yet  Luke  expressly  says  that,  on   the  "  next  day," 
Jesus,  accompanied  by  "  many  of  his   disciples "    and 
"muck people"  were  entering  Nain  in  time  to  witness  a 
funeral.      These   people,    therefore,  had   walked   from 
Capernaum  to  Nain  on  that  day,  and  arrived  in  time  to 
meet  a  funeral  procession.     Now,  the  former  place  was 
situated  on  the  north-east  shore  of  the  Tiberian  Sea, 
while  Nain  was  on  the  south-western  side  of  the  same 
sea,  a  number  of  miles  inland,  at  the  foot  of  Little  Her- 
man mountains.    This  crowd,  therefore,  had  marched,  on 
foot,  some  thirty  or  forty  miles  to  this  remote  village  in 
this  unprecedentedly  short  time.      This  might  well  be 
called  a  "  forced  march."     But  there  are  other  matters 
still  more  worthy  of  notice.     There  are  few  facts  more 
unaccountable  than  this  of  Jesus  and  his  disciples  and 
"  much  people,"  suddenly  and  without  any  assigned,  ap- 
parent or  conceivable  reason,  save  that  shown  by  their 
acts,  making  this  extraordinary  march  to  this  remote 
town.     It  is  still  more  singular  that  they  should  have 
happened  \.Q  get  there  at  the  time  of  this  funeral  and 
accidentally  witness   this    miraculous    resurrection   and 
then  turn  round  and  go  back  again  without  having  even 
entered  the  town,  so  far  as  we  are  informed.     For  it  is 

26 


4O2  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

said  that  they  met  the  procession  or  corpse  as  they  ap- 
proached the  gate  of  the  city  ;  and  when  the  corpse  was 
revivified,  the  whole  crowd  and  the  whole  matter  are 
left  right  there.  The  next  he  tells  us  of  Jesus,  was  his 
receiving  the  messengers  of  John  the  Baptist.  Can. 
such  a  strange,  disconnected  and  unaccountable  state- 
ment as  this,  be  entitled  to  be  considered  proof  of  so 
stupendous  a  miracle  as  is  here  pretended  ?  What 
would  we  say  of  such  an  account  of  Catholic  miracle  in 
Portugal  to-day  ? 

There  is,  however,  something  more  than  mere 
strangeness,  insufficiency  and  improbability  about  this 
affair.  If  Matthew  is  to  be  believed,  Luke  has  been 
deluded  about  this  matter — a  matter  which  he  personally 
knew  nothing  about.  Matthew  gives  an  unusually 
detailed  account  of  the  proceedings  of  Jesus  at  this 
particular  period.  Starting  at  the  same  healing  of  the 
Centurion's  servant  at  Capernaum,  Matthew  does  not 
say  a  word  about  this  extraordinary  trip  to  Nain  and  its 
miraculous  results  on  the  next  day,  but  gives  us  a  con- 
tinuous account  of  his  movements  in  a  different  direction 
from  that  to  Nain,  and  of  such  a  character  as  to  exclude 
the  possibility  of  this  extraordinary  march  upon  that 
place.  He  first  takes  Jesus  back  to  Peter's,  and,  on  that 
same  evening,  he  has  him  surrounded  with  a  crowd  of 
sick ;  and  has  him,  on  account  of  these  "  multitudes," 
give  commandment,  on  that  same  evening,  "  to  depart 
to  the  other  side,"  that  is,  on  the  other  side  of  the  lake. 
He  then  tells  us,  after  some  talking,  that,  when  they 
entered  the  ship  (to  go  to  the  "  other  side  ")  they  met 
with  a  great  storm  which  Jesus  quelled,  and  that  "  when 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  403 

he  was  come  to  the  other  side  into  the  country  of  the 
Gergesenes — [that  is,  the  region  about  Gadara],  there 
met  him  two  possessed  of  devils,  etc."  Now  this  country 
lies  entirely  in  a  different  direction  to  that  to  Nain- 
After  performing  a  miracle  here,  he  has  him  return  to 
his  own  side  by  ship,  and  perform  many  miracles,  dis- 
course frequently,  send  out  his  disciples  over  the  coun- 
try, etc.,  and  then  has  him  meet  John's  messengers, 
without  ever  having  been  nearer  Nain  than  he  was  at 
Capernaum.  And  yet,  Luke  fills  up  this  whole  gap  be- 
tween his  going  to  Peter's  house  and  his  meeting  John's 
messengers  with  this  single  strange  and  eccentric  move- 
ment to  Nain  in  an  entirely  different  region  and  different 
direction  !  Luke  knew  nothing  about  it,  and  professes 
to  write  only  the  current  beliefs  existing  long  afterwards, 
while  John  and  Matthew  were  present  with  him  :  none 
mention  it  but  Luke,  and  Matthew  renders  Luke's 
account  impossible  :  What  shall  we  conclude  ?  Is  not 
the  mere  silence  of  all  the  others  on  so  wonderful  an 
affair  a  most  potent,  if  not  resistless,  presumption  against 
a  mere  subsequent  rumor  or  belief,  without  any  state- 
ment of  the  origin  of,  or  authority  for,  such  belief  ? 

It  is  possible  that  it  is  an  interpolation,  but,  as  Luke 
only  professes  to  write  of  beliefs  (derived  from  hearsay 
or  tradition),  it  may,  also,  have  been  one  of  that  swarm 
of  disconnected  and  worthless  fictions  which  sprung  up 
after  the  resurrection  and  formed  much  of  the  material  of 
the  apocryphal  writings  and  of  the  traditional  beliefs  of 
early  Christians  ;  and  Luke,  in  merely  recording  the 
current  beliefs,  inserted  this  as  one  of  them,  at  such 
point  in  his  narratives  as  suited  his  own  convenience. 


404  JESUS    AND    RELIGION 

However  this  may  be,  it  cannot  command  rational  belief, 
independent  of  its  miraculous  feature.  And  few  com- 
petent judges,  I  think,  will  fail  to  conclude  that,  if  there 
was  ever  such  an  apparent  "  raising  of  the  dead,"  it  was 
only  an  apparent  one  ;  and  that,  if  such  a  crowd  ever 
went  with  Jesus  to  Nain  and  saw  that  boy  raised  up 
from  the  bier,  they  were  invited  there  for  that  purpose 
and  the  matter  was  pre-arranged  for  their  special  benefit. 
Jesus  and  his  disciples  and  that  crowd  did  not  make  that 
trip  withotit  a  motive, — nay,  without  some  common  motive 
or  object  of  attraction :  What  was  it  ?  We  have  no 
right  to  assume  a  motive  which  is  neither  alleged,  nor 
suggested  by  the  facts,  especially  have  we  no  right 
to  make  such  assumptions  in  favor  of  religious  miracles 
told  by  religionists  in  support  of  their  creeds.  Nor  will 
any  object  but  a  common  one  account  for  this  singular 
and  common  movement.  The  only  conceivable  object 
which  Jesus  and  this  crowd  could  have  in  common 
would  be  one  appertaining  to  his  own  performances  and 
pretensions.  This  is,  not  only  the  one  conceivable 
object  or  purpose,  but  this  is  the  only  one  that  was 
attained  or  attempted.  The  legitimate  and  overwhelming 
inference,  therefore,  is,  that  they  went  to  do  and  see 
what  they  did  do  and  see,  if  they  went  at  all.  And  yet, 
the  moment  we  concede  this,  the  presumption  of  col- 
lusion and  pre-arrangement  is  resistless.  Taking  the 
whole  facts,  the  story  is  worthless,  even  if  it  were  un- 
contradicted. 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  405 

Luke  also  tells  us  (ch.  v.)  about  a  large  haul  of  fish 
which  his  disciples  caught  by  following  the  advice  of 
Jesus.  This  may  have  been  so.  It  is  neither  a  miracle 
to  see  or  observe  a  school  of  fish  before  others  do,  or  to 
see  them  when  others  cannot  or  do  not  see  them. 


Luke  again  gives  us  new  matter  in  his  seventeenth 
chapter,  about  the  alleged  cure  of  ten  lepers. 

He  says  that  ten  lepers  stood  afar  off  and  cried  for 
help  to  Jesus  as  he  passed,  and  that  "  he  said  unto  them, 
Go  show  yourselves  unto  the  priests."  This  is  all  he 
said  or  did.  Luke,  who  knew  nothing  about  it,  adds  this 
further — "  And  it  came  to  pass,  that,  as  they  went,  they 
were  cleansed,"  and  one  of  the  men,  who  was  a  Samaritan, 
came  to  Jesus  and  thanked  him.  Jesus  merely  told  them 
to  go  and  show  themselves  to  the  priests,  whose  duty  it 
was  to  examine  and  determine  upon  the  condition  of  the 
leprous,  and  who  alone  were  competent  to  do  so.  The 
man  who  was  a  Samaritan  did  not  even  say  that  he  was 
healed.  Not  having  the  privilege,  as  a  Samaritan,  to  go 
to  the  Jewish  Temple  for  such  a  purpose,  and  having  a 
knowledge  of  Jesus'  benefactions  to  the  afflicted,  and 
grateful  for  his  kindly  recognition  of  an  outcast  leper, 
he  did  not  follow  the  advice  of  Jesus  to  go  to  Jerusalem, 
but  came  and  expressed  his  gratitude  to  him.  Such 
would  seem  to  be  the  probable  facts,  if  he  ever  came  to 
him  at  all.  There  is  not  a  word  about  his  cure  save 
Luke's  mere  assertion  that  they  were  cured  on  their  way, 


406  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

and  it  would  seem  very  clear  that  this  one  never  started. 
Of  the  other  nine  we  never  hear  again.  Whether  they 
were  ever  cured,  or  ever  even  started  for  Jerusalem, 
could  only  be  known,  even  to  Jesus  and  his  disciples,  by 
rumor  or  hearsay.  Jesus,  certainly,  did  not  know  what 
became  of  them  ;  for,  when  the  Samaritan  came  to  him, 
he  expressly  inquired — "  but  where  are  the  nine  ? "  To 
which  there  was  no  answer.  The  fact  that  Luke  states 
it  as  one  of  the  stories  believed  in  his  day  that  they  were 
healed  on  their  way,  when  they  had  no  evidence  to  sup- 
port such  a  belief,  is  hardly  sufficient  to  prove  a  miracle 
to  us,  since  such  facts  are  proof  of  nothing  but  their 
own  existence.  The  singular  features  in  this  case  are 
that,  if  Jesus  either  meant  or  tried  to  heal  them,  he 
should  not  have  indicated  it  in  some  of  his  usual  modes ; 
and  the  fact  that  none  of  the  men  were  healed  at  the 
time.  How  long  does  it  take  for  divine  power  to 
operate  as  a  medicine  or  cure  ? 


MIRACLES   EXCLUSIVELY    NOTICED    BY  JOHN. 

"  In  the  second  chapter  of  John  we  have  a  narrative 
of  the  turning  of  water  into  wine,  by  Jesus  ; — a  matter 
not  deemed  worthy  of  mention  by  others,  although  it 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  4O/ 

must  have  been  known,  if  true,  to  all  the  disciples,  who 
were  also  present.  John  states  that,  at  the  close  of  a 
Jewish  marriage  feast,  which  usually  lasted  seven  days, 
the  wine  run  out  ;  and  that  the  mother  of  Jesus  came  to 
him  about  it.  Jesus,  after  a  harsh  rebuke  to  his  mother, 
ordered  the  servants  to  fill  up  six  water  pots  with  water, 
and  it  was  this  water  which  he  is  said  to  have  converted 
into  wine.  The  quantity  held  by  these  pots  (said  to 
contain  between  two  and  three  firkins  each)  has  been 
estimated  by  Christian  authors  as  high  as  136  gallons. 
Mr.  Beecher's  estimate  is  126  gallons: — nearly  four 
barrels  of  wine,  for  a  "  heel-tap "  to  a  village  feast ! 
When  this  miraculous  beverage  was  taken  to  the 
"  Governor "  of  the  feast,  he  complimented  it  highly, 
and  declared  that  it  was  customary  to  reserve  the 
poorest  wine  to  the  last  of  the  feast  when  men  were 
"  well  drunk,"  but  that  in  that  instance  the  best  wine 
was  saved  until  the  close  of  the  feast. 

Several  matters  suggest  themselves  in  this  case. 
For  what  purpose  was  such  a  monstrous  quantity  of 
wine  supplied  at  or  near  the  close  of  the  feast,  when  the 
guests  had  already  drank  beyond  the  calculation  of  their 
host?  Did  the  already  saturated  guests  at  a  village 
wedding  require  wine  enough  to  supply  an  army  ?  Is 
not  this  manifestly  boastful  and  reckless  exaggeration, 
in  derogation  of  the  verity  of  .the  story  ?  If  ever  such  a 
scene  occurred,  this  amount  or  quantity  is,  clearly,  a  gross 
exaggeration.  And  again  :  What  was  the  true  nature  of 
this  beverage  ?  We  are  to  suppose  that  it  had  the  ap- 
pearance of  wine,  and  we  are  informed  that  the  "  Gover- 
nor "  or  chairman  of  the  feast  praised  it.  But,  Has  not 


4O3  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

this  leader  of  this  marriage  revel,  utterly  destroyed  his 
own  testimony  and  stultified  himself  by  admitting  that  it 
was  brought  in  at  the  very  stage  of  affairs  when  men 
usually  brought  in  bad  wines  because  the  men  were  so 
"  well  drunk "  that  they  were  incapable  of  telling  bad 
wine  from  good  ?  If  bad  wine  had  been  brought  in,  as 
usual,  Could  he,  according  to  his  own  confession,  have 
detected  it  ?  Besides,  Are  not  millions  of  men,  far 
soberer  than  this  complaisant  "  Governor,"  daily  served 
with  wine  which  they  think  good,  and  still  oftener  com- 
pliment, and  which  is  yet  innocent  of  the  slightest  con- 
nection with  the  grape  ?  Jesus  did  not  say  he  meant  to 
make  wine,  nor  that  he  had  made  it ;  but,  without  saying 
a  word  about  it,  ordered  the  servants  to  take  what  he  had 
prepared  to  the  revellers ;  nor  did  he  or  his  mother,  by 
word  or  act,  intimate  that  the  process  was  a  miraculous 
one.  If  it  was  intended  to  exhibit  his  supernatural  or 
divine  power, — Why  did  he  not  invite  the  whole  company 
to  see  it,  instead  of  performing  it  secretly  ?  Why  did  he 
put  the  servants  to  the  labor  of  supplying  such  a  quantity 
of  water  to  convert  into  wine,  unless  the  water  was 
necessary  to  his  process  ?  Why  not  have  ordered  the 
jars  to  be  full  of  wine  at  once  ?  Would  not  that  have 
been  far  more  direct,  least  troublesome,  and  least 
suspicious  ?  Why  require  the  same  amount  of  water 
as  there  was  wine  made  ?  These  questions  find  no 
answer  upon  the  supposition  of  a  divine  miracle,  but 
are  readily  enough  answered  upon  the  supposition  that 
he  was  acquainted  with  some  recipe  for  forming  a 
simulated  wine  and  had  to  have  water  for  its  basis.  He 
had  ample  opportunity  to  perform  such  an  operation  un- 
observed, and,  if  he  did  so,  we  can  understand  why  he 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  409 

did  it  in  private,  and  was  silent  as  to  his  methods.  The 
conduct  of  his  mother  gives  support  to  the  supposition 
that  he  possessed  such  knowledge,  and  that  she  was 
aware  of  it.  The  mother,  Be  it  remembered,  did  not 
believe  a  word  of  his  divine  or  miraculous  power.  And 
yet,  we  find  her  going  to  him  and  pointing  out  the  oc- 
casion for  the  exercise  of  his  real  power  or  art,  and,  al- 
though grossly  rebuked  as  if  an  intermeddler,  she  knew 
his  moods  and  his  fondness  for  such  things  too  well  to 
doubt  that  he  would  avail  himself  of  so  favorable  an  op- 
portunity for  mystery  and  display,  notwithstanding  his 
rude  rebuff  of  herself.  But,  Let  us  observe  the  woman's 
conduct,  with  a  view  to  see  what  she  really  did  come  to 
him  about  the  matter  for,  and  to  ascertain  whether  she 
really  had  any  knowledge  as  to  what  kind  of  performance 
was  to  take  place.  If  she  had  no  idea  of  his  method  or 
requirements — no  idea  that  something  would  be  required, 
beyond  his  mere  volition,  to  create  the  wine,  Would  she 
have  ever  thought  of  giving  command  to  the  servants  to 
do  for  him  whatever  he  required  to  be  done  ?  Do  not 
the  very  facts  of  her  coming  to  him  about  the  matter, 
when  she  did  not  believe  in  his  miraculous  powers,  and 
telling  the  servants  to  do  what  he  required,  show  that 
she  knew  her  son  had  some  wwmiraclous  method  and 
means  of  making  a  simulated  wine  which  would  require 
other  means  and  facilities  which  the  servants  could 
supply  ?  And,  Remember  that,  in  trying  to  interpret 
these  recitals  so  as  not  to  make  them  sheer  fabrications, 
we  are  compelled  to  rely  upon  the  chosen  statements  of 
a  single  unknown  writer,  who  is  anxious  to  impress  upon 
us  the  idea  of  a  miracle.  Remembering  this,  Does  it 
not  become  clear,  that  there  is,  not  only  no  proof  of  a 


4IO  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

miracle  here,  but  much  stronger  evidence  of  a  natural 
transaction  ? 


We  have,  in  chapter  fifth,  the  alleged  cure  of  a  man 
who  is  said  to  have  been  troubled  with  an  "  infirmity  " 
for  thirty-eight  years.  The  nature  or  extent  of  the  in- 
firmity does  not  appear,  save  as  they  may  be  inferred 
from  the  other  facts  or  recitals.  It  did  not  prevent 
him  from  going  to  the  pool  mentioned,  and  remaining 
there  alone.  He  does  not  complain  that  he  could  not 
walk  down  to  the  pool  when  the  water  was  troubled,  but 
that  others  were  more  active  and  arrived  before  him  ; 
although,  while  waiting,  he  had  some  kind  of  a  pallet  to 
rest  on,  which  is  called  a  "  bed."  The  "infirmity  "  could 
not  have  been  very  great,  since  he  had  withstood  it  for 
thirty-eight  years,  and  was  still  hopeful.  John  asserts, 
as  actual  facts* the  following, — namely:  that  an  angel 
actually  went  down  into  the  pool  of  Bethesda  and 
"troubled"  its  waters  once  a  year,  and  that  whoever 
could  step  into  it  first  after  this  troubling,  was  made 
whole  of  "  whatsoever  disease  he  had ;  "  and  that  a  "  great 
multitude  of  impotent  folk,  of  blind,  halt,  withered,  were 
at  hand  waiting  for  this  troubling  of  the  waters."  The 
old  man  in  question,  had  hopefully  waited  through  many 
years  and  struggled  for  this  forlorn  hope,  but  this  divine 
cure  was  limited  to  one  person,  and  that  one  the  most 
vigorous  or  wealthy,  —  that  is,  the  most  successful. 
Jesus  had  some  talk  with  this  old  man  about  his  situa- 
tion and  inspired  him  with  faith  to  believe  that  he  could 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  411 

cure  him,  and  finally  bade  him  rise  up,  take  his  bed  and 
go.  That  an  infirm  man,  under  the  inspiration  and 
stimulant  of  such  assurance  and  faith,  should  have  felt  a 
new  temporary  vigor,  and  have  walked  home  with  more 
elasticity  and  spring  than  he  had  used  in  going  there,  is 
not  miraculous.  What  else,  if  anything,  was  done  to 
him  we  are  not  informed,  but  this,  as  we  know,  is  no 
evidence  that  other  influences  or  remedies  were  not  used. 

The  singular  fact  here  is,  that  there  was  a  multitude 
of  suffering  people — sufferers  whom  we  are  to  believe 
that  Jesus  could  have  healed  at  word — and  yet  he  makes 
no  effort  to  heal  them,  but  selects  out  this  old,  credulous, 
and  perhaps  hypoed,  man  as  his  single  subject.  Was 
this  the  act  of  an  all-powerful  and  beneficent  being,  or  of 
a  Divine  Saviour  making  himself  known  to  the  World,  or 
was  it  an  act  of  human  sagacity  ?  Why  select  this  par- 
ticular man,  who  was  merely  "  infirm,"  among  all  that 
multitude  of  blind  and  halt  ?  Why  perform  on  him 
alone  and  without  witnesses  or  observers  of  his  per- 
formances ?  It  is  impossible  to  answer  these  questions 
favorably  to  the  divine  pretensions  of  Jesus. 

And  Are  we  to  believe,  not  only  that  this  was  a  mir- 
aculous cure,  but  that  an  angel  actually  came  down  once 
a  year  to  trouble  this  pool  in  the  "  sheep  market,"  for 
the  purpose  of  curing  only  one  man — and  one,  not  the 
most  afflicted  or  most  deserving,  but  the  veriest  villain 
or  murderer  if  he  were  most  active  in  getting  to  it  first  ? 
And  yet,  the  Evangelist  asserts  all  this  as  a  fact  and 
just  as  positively  as  he  does  the  healing  of  the  infirm 
man.  Were  he  in  court,  would  he  not  meet  the  maxim 
— "falsum  in  uno,falsum  in  omnibus" 


412  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

In  the  ninth  chapter  John  gives  us  the  case  of  an  al- 
leged healing  of  a  .man  who  had  been  blind  from  birth. 
The  case  is  one  to  be  specially  noted.  The  case  was, 
manifestly,  not  one  of  nervous  origin,  and  one  which 
would,  therefore,  require  other  operations  or  influences 
than  mere  faith  and  magnetic  power.  Probably  it  was  a 
film  or  false  membrane  over  the  pupil  of  the  eye, — if 
there  was  real  relief  given.  This,  in  the  absence  of 
miraculous  power,  would  require  physical  action  and 
agencies  to  remove  it.  This  fact  or  necessity  was 
readily  perceived  and  acted  upon.  The  remedy  adopted 
was  somewhat  rude  and  original,  but  may  well  have  been 
successful,  if  skilfully  applied,  and  was  certainly  a  "  move 
in  the  right  direction."  He  took  the  patient  and  "  spat  on 
the  ground  and  made  clay  of  the  spittle,  and  he  anointed 
the  eyes  of  the  blind  man  with  the  clay,  and  said,  Go 
wash  in  the  pool  of  Siloam."  And  "  He  went  his  way, 
therefore,  and  washed,  and  came  back  seeing."  Here  we 
have  no  "  sighing,"  nor  "  ephata,"  nor  other  pretence  of 
superhuman  agency,  but  a  single  and  palpable  physical 
operation, — and  an  operation  to  which  was  due  whatever 
cure  was  effected.  The  case,  therefore,  is  one  which 
shows  that  Jesus  did  not,  and  could  not,  rely  upon  his 
ordinary  remedies,  or  any  mere  spiritual  power  at  his 
command.  Nor  does  the  evidence  and  inferences  it 
furnishes  stop  at  disproving  this  miracle.  It  shows  that 
Jesus  himself  had  learned  that  his  mysterious  and  oft- 
repeated  remedies  of  faith  and  personal  magnetism, 
which  had  served  him  in  mental  and  nervous  disorders, 
had  no  effect  in  such  cases  as  this  and  many  others ; 
and  that,  when  he  met  such  cases,  he  either  added  such 
new  remedies  as  his  knowledge  and  experience  could 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  413 

suggest  or  wholly  disregarded  his  old  mysterious  reme- 
dies, and  relied  solely  on  palpably  physical  agencies, — as 
in  this  case.  The  idea  here,  evidently,  was  to  scour  off 
the  film  or  false  membrane.  If  it  succeeded  it  was,  at 
the  best,  a  case  of  rude,  but  successful  surgery.  It  is 
simply  said,  that  the  man  came  back,  "  seeing."  How 
far  his  sight  was  restored  does  not  appear. 

While  the  very  exposure  of  such  an  utterly  wwmiracu- 
lous  remedy,  and  a  certain  semi-professional  sagacity  in  its 
conception,. gives  us  reason  to  believe  that  such  an  opera- 
tion took  place,  and  possibly  with  partial  benefit,  yet 
there  is  a  promptness  and  yet  a  cautious  and  cunning 
simplicity  about  the  replies  of  the  man  and  his  parents 
which  strongly  suggests  the  idea  of  collusion.  It  so  im- 
pressed the  Jews  who  examined  them.  They  would  not 
believe  them  as  to  his  being  born  blind,  after  fully  ex- 
amining the  man  and  his  parents,  but  .charged  them  with 
being  the  disciples  of  Jesus.  And,  if  the  account  means 
what  it  plainly  says  and  implies — namely,  that  he  came 
back  "  seeing,"  and  by  means  and  direction  of  his  own 
sight,  then  such  suspicions  would  receive  further  war- 
rant. For  it  is  clear  that  a  man  who  had  been  born 
blind  and  been  cured  by  such  a  process,  could  not  so 
soon  endure  the  light  necessary  for  such  a  purpose  ; 
while,  if  born  blind,  he  could  not  have  recognized,  and 
adapted  his  movements  to,  either  roads,  streets,  or-  ob- 
jects. But  however  the  facts  may  be  in  this  matter,  it 
cannot  affect  the  plain  and  conclusive  fact,  that,  what- 
ever cure  was  effected,  was  effected  by  the  only  remedy 
which  was  pretended  to  be  applied, — namely,  the  purely 
physical  one  described.  The  case  is  one  that  is  fatal 
to  the  pretensions  of  Jesus  as  divine  healer. 


4H  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

The  last  miracle  exclusively  mentioned  in  John's 
Gospel  (so-called),  is  the  resurrection  of  Lazarus — 
(ch.  xi.).  As  a  matter  of  justice  to  its  performer,  as  well 
as  in  explanation  of  the  transactionitself,  Let  us  en- 
deavor to  grasp  the  outlines  of  the  situation.  And  as 
one  very  clear  hint  of  this,  Let  us  turn  to  the  seventh 
chapter  of  John,  and  read  those  five  first  and  most  sig- 
nificant verses,  which  are  in  the  words  following : 
"  After  these  things  Jesus  walked  in  Galilee :  for  he 
would  not  walk  in  Jewry,  because  the  Jews  sought  to 
kill  him.  Now  the  Jews'  feast  of  tabernacles  was  at 
hand.  His  brethren  therefore  said  unto  him,  Depart 
hence  and  go  into  Judea,  that  thy  disciples  also  may  see 
the  works  thou  doest.  For  there  is  no  man  that  doeth 
anything  in  secret,  and  he  himself  seeketh  to  be  known 
openly.  If  thou  doeth  these  things,  show  thyself  to  the 
world.  For  neither  did  his  brethren  believe  in  him'' 

In  this  plain,  common-sense  home-thrust  from  his 
own  brothers,  who  had  known  him  from  boyhood  and 
were  familiar  with  his  conduct  and  career  and  who 
wholly  discredited  his  divine  powers,  we  catch  a  glimpse 
of  the  condition  of  affairs  and  of  the  stimulants  which 
urged  Jesus  on  to  more  reckless  endeavors  and  final  dis- 
aster. He  had  already  fled  from  Judea  to  save  his  life, 
and,  for  a  considerable  time,  had  not  dared  to  return. 
There  had  been  a  time  of  dread,  irresolution  and  inac- 
tion. His  fortunes  had  become  more  desperate,  and  his 
person  was  no  longer  safe.  The  intelligent,  wealthy 
and  official  classes  whom  he  had  reviled,  had  become 
more  actively  indignant  and  vindictive.  The  masses, 
upon  whom  his  hopes  rested,  were  ignorant  and  fickle. 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  415 

Of  knowledge  or  reason  they  had  little.  From  their 
galling  national  slavery  to  the  colossal  empire  of  Rome 
their  sole  hope  of  redemption  lay  in  the  coming  of  their 
all-conquering  Christ.  This  Christ-idea  was  not  a  mat- 
ter to  be  reasoned  about.  He  would  come  because 
God  had  promised  that  he  should.  He  would  come  as 
the  prophets  had  foretold :  but  they  were  not  experts  in 
prophecy.  The  mysterious  powers  and  socialistic  doc- 
trines of  Jesus  had  attracted  them,  but  an  unpalatable 
doctrine  or  expression  would  produce  indifference  or  de- 
fection ;  and,  unless  highly  stimulated,  they  were  worth- 
less in  the  presence  of  danger.  To  his  enemies  they 
were  only,  dangerous  as  an  excited  mob  :  to  him  they 
were  dangerous  by  their  fickleness  and  treachery.  They 
were  his  sole  reliance,  and  yet,  to  secure  or  retain  them 
he  was  compelled  to  pander  more  and  more  to  their  love 
of  the  miraculous.  Without  miracles  he  would  have 
sunk  at  once  into  the  humble  carpenter  of  Nazareth,  and 
became  an  object  of  ridicule  or  pity.  He. had  neither 
blood,  family,  class,  nor  wealth  to  back  him,  but  was 
menaced  by  the  powerful,  and  was  censured  and  pitied 
by  his  own  household.  As  dangers  thickened  around 
him,  he  had  administered  ever  higher  doses  of  his  only 
medicine.  His  enemies  were  only  kept  in  check  by 
their  fears  that  his  arrest  might  breed  riots  among  the 
rabble.  A  humiliating  flight  had  been  his  usual  and 
latest  safeguard.  Since  his  flight  he  had  neither  dared 
to  openly  prosecute  his  purposes  nor  to  return  to  Jeru- 
salem. To  go  now,  under  the  taunts  of  his  brothers, 
was  to  march  into  a  nest  of  hornets.  Without  some 
new  and  powerful  menace  to  the  Temple  party  his  ad- 
vent in  Jerusalem  would  be  the  signal  for  his  arrest.  It 


41 6  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

was  not,  alone,  his  aspirations  that  were  at  stake,  but 
his  life.  He  had  long  passed  the  Rubicon  :  and  the 
Temple  party  had  been  driven  by  his  incessant  attacks 
and  bold  agitations  to  accept  the  conflict  which  had  be- 
come inevitable,  and  had  "  thrown  away  the  scabbard." 
Spies  were  on  his  track  watching  for  occasions  to  accuse 
him.  His  brothers  were  taunting  him  with  the  contrast 
between  his  pretensions  and  his  performances,  and  with 
his  avoidance  of  publicity. 

What  could  he  do, — thus  conditioned  ?  Was  it  not 
possible,  after  the  great  crowd  had  already  assembled  for 
the  feast,  to  pass  through  Judea  and  enter  Jerusalem 
"  as  it  were  secretly  ? "  Could  he  not,  with  the  aid  of 
his  devoted  friends  and  disciples  at  Bethany  and  his 
secret  ones  at  Jerusalem,  once  more  sound  a  note  on  the 
old  string  which  would,  even  yet,  awaken  a  response  in 
the  popular  heart  ?  Could  he  not  set  the  multitude 
ablaze  with  a  new  and  greater  miracle — a  resurrection 
of  the  dead,  almost  under  the  walls  of  Jerusalem  ;  and 
under  the  awe  and  excitement  inspired  by  such  an  evi- 
dence of  divine  sanction,  march  triumphantly  into  Jeru- 
salem as  "  King  of  the  Jews  " — as  the  Messiah,  and  trust  to 
the  effect  upon  the  inflammable  mass  of  Jews  assembled 
within  its  walls  ?  Was  not  this  the  one  chance  left — the 
one  alternative  between  that  and  a  final  abandonment  of 
his  efforts  and  a  life  of  insignificance  and  ridicule,  if  not 
that  of  a  hunted  criminal  ?  Such,  from  the  situation 
and  conduct  of  Jesus,  would  seem  to  have  been  the  views 
which  impressed  him,  and  to  have  determined  him  to  dare 
the  "  cast  of  the  die."  And  with  this  determination, 
he  departed  from  Galilee  alone  and  entered  Judea  "as 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  417 

it  were   secretly," — as   John   tells   us, — and   no   doubt 
smarting  under  the  telling  rebuke  of  his  brothers. 

His  proceedings  during  this  period,  however,  con- 
tinue to  be  as  disjointedly  and  obscurely  told  as  they 
have  all  along  been  since  his  public  pretensions  to  the 
kingly  honors  of  the  Messiahship.  John's  account  is, 
perhaps,  the  completest.  He  describes  his  teachings, 
the  attempt  of  the  Jews  "  again  to  take  him,"  and  how  he 
"  escaped  out  of  their  hands,  and  went  away  again  beyond 
Jordan  into  the  place  where  John  first  baptized  and  there 
abode/'  at  least  until  we  are  introduced  to  the  affair  of 
Lazarus,  which  was  the  prelude  to  his  final  effort, — 
namely,  his  formal  march  from  Bethany  (the  scene  of 
this  preparatory  effort)  into  Jerusalem  and  the  Temple, 
amid  the  hosannas  of  his  followers  as  King  of  the  Jews. 
Such  is  a  brief  statement  of  the  matters  likely  to  have 
influenced  this  affair  of  Lazarus,  as  well  as  most  calcu- 
lated to  elucidate  it. 

Trie  situation  and  strong  necessities  pressing  upon 
Jesus  at  the  time  of  this  affair  and  the  place  and  person 
selected  for  the  miracle,  render  it  peculiarly  important 
that  this  narrative  should  be  examined  with  unusual 
care  and  suspicion.  The  very  fact,  that  the  most  start- 
ling and  telling  miracle  of  Jesus — a  miracle  which  con- 
sisted in  raising  from  the  dead  one  of  his  most  devoted 
and  beloved  disciples  and  whose  house  was  a  rendezvous 
for  him  and  his  followers,  in  the  presence  of  many,  evi- 
dently invited,  witnesses  from  Jerusalem — a  miracle  the 
most  deliberate  of  all  his  performances,  and  the  one  fol- 
lowed by  the  most  important  and  decisive  step  of  his 
life — a  step  which  he  knew  to  be  decisive  of  his  fate, — 

27 


41 8  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

the  fact,  we  say,  that  such  a  performance  could  have 
happened  under  such  circumstances,  and  yet  have  been 
utterly  overlooked  by  all  three  of  the  synoptical  Gospels, 
is  not  only  incomprehensible,  but  wellnigh  inconceiva- 
ble, and  certainly  has  the  force  of  a  "  negative  preg- 
nant "  against  its  existence.  The  recitals  furnish  the 
grounds  for  but  a  single' comprehensible  reason  for 
avoiding  mentioning  it.  There  were  present  at  this  oc- 
currence witnesses  who  neither  blindly  accepted  nor  sub- 
serviently reported,  but  who  saw  the  whole  transaction 
and  went  back  and  reported  to  the  Pharisees,  in  Jerusa- 
lem, that  there  was  a  mere  pretence,  and  not  a  miracle, 
in  the  resurrection  of  Lazarus.  We  have  but  the  mere 
fact  of  their  disbelief  and  report.  But,  if  these  men 
were  sent  (as  it  is  almost  certain  they  were)  on  purpose 
to  report  the  facts  to  the  authorities  and  chief  men, 
Would  not  such  a  report,  with  all  the  particulars  of  their 
exposure  of  the  proceeding,  have  given  an  odor  to  this 
transaction  with  the  Jewish  public  which  would  have 
made  the  disciples  anxious  to  have  the  affair  forgotten 
as  soon  as  possible  ?  While  the  true  facts  were  so  no- 
torious and  were  well  remembered  by  the  public,  they 
would  scarcely  dare  to  write  a  completely  garbled  and 
perverted  account  of  a  matter  so  publicly  discredited ; 
but,  as  John's  Gospel  is  claimed  to  have  been  the  last 
one  written,  and  to  have  been  written  at  a  time  when 
this  matter  had  ceased  to  be  remembered  by  the  indif- 
ferent public,  John  may  have  concluded  to  record  the 
transaction,  with  his  own  version  of  it.  However  this 
may  be,  the  whole  facts  in  this  case,  not  only  justify,  but 
demand,  a  sharp  scrutiny  under  the  full  and  free  play  of 
an  aroused  skepticism. 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  419 

As  the  narrative  concerning  this  miracle  is  of  un- 
usual length,  I  will  quote  it  only  as  it  is  needed,  request- 
ing the  reader  to  have  the  eleventh  chapter  of  John  be- 
fore him. 

We  notice,  in  the  first  place,  that  Jesus  was  on  the 
Jordan  where  John  baptized,  and  that,  from  this  point, 
it  was  an  easy  matter  to  intercommunicate,  back  and 
forth,  with  Lazarus  at  Bethany,  any  day  or  night.  We 
are  to  bear  in  mind,  also,  that  Jesus  "  loved  Martha  and 
her  sister  and  Lazarus,"  and  that  his  followers  also  loved 
them, — that  their  house  at  Bethany  was  one  of  their 
favorite  resorts,  and  that  the  whole  household  were 
devoted  to  Jesus  and  his  cause.  We  must  keep  in  view, 
also,  the  imperious  necessity  for  some  striking  miracle 
to  the  safety  of  Jesus  and  his  followers,  who  had  been 
again  driven  beyond  the  Jordan,  and  how  absolutely  nec- 
essary, also,  it  was  to  that  decisive  effort  of  entering 
Jerusalem  as  King,  which  was  in  anticipation.  We  can 
scarcely  avoid  also  noting  that,  for  a  faithful  and  prudent 
management  of  a  simulated  miracle,  he  could  have  se- 
lected no  family  to  compare  to  this  of  Bethany.  There 
appears  to  have  been  but  the  three,  adult  persons — all 
prudent  and  devoted.  Nor  can  we  fail  to  note  that  there 
was  at  hand  such  an  admirable  substitute  for  a  grave — 
namely  :  a  '*  cave  "  in  which  one  could  live  almost  any 
length  of  time,  with  food  and  water ; — and  therefore 
admirably  adapted  for  a  live  dead  man. 

When  we  consider  all  these  facilities  and  advantages, 
— Does  it  not  appear  somewhat  singular  that,  of  all 
men  on  earth,  this  same  Lazarus  should  happen  to  die 
at  this  extraordinary  juncture  in  the  fortunes  of  his 
Master---at  this  luckiest  of  all  moments,  and  should  have 


42O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

been  put  away  in  this  closed  "  cave,"  under  the  direction 
of  that  Mary  and  her  sister  who  had  anointed  Jesus'  feet 
with  precious  ointment  from  a  box  of  alabaster  ? — and 
that  he  should  have  had  no  indiscreet  children  or  ser- 
vants— (for  Martha  did  her  own  housework) — to  dis- 
turb his  dying  hours  or  tattle  about  the  death  scene  and" 
burial  ?  But  let  us  not  fail  also  to  remark  that,  had  this 
been  a  genuine  miracle,  it  would,  on  account  of  these 
very  facts  and  facilities  indicating  design  and  collusion, 
have  been  far  better  for  Jesus  to  have  resurrected  any- 
body else  in  Judea,  at  this  critical  juncture,  than  Laza- 
rus ; — far  better,  also,  to  have  had  a  less  suspicious  grave 
than  the  "  cave  "  at  Bethany,  and  far  better  to  have  had 
the  whole  matter  under  any  other  management  than 
these  devoted  female  disciples,  and  to  have  had  the 
corpse  examined,  and  the  miraculous  operation  occur 
openly  and  under  the  special  inspection  of  his  most  in- 
telligent opponents.  Nor  can  we  fail  to  perceive  that 
the  facts  as  presented,  do  in  fact  exhibit  an  almost  mir- 
aculous concurrence  of  events  and  conditions — (if  they 
were  not  preconcerted) — presenting  the  best  possible 
conditions  and  the  strongest  possible  motives  for  arrang- 
ing and  executing,  without  detection,  a  simulated  mira- 
cle ;  and,  for  that  very  reason,  the  worst  possible  ones 
for  securing  its  acceptance  as  a  genuine  miracle  by  any 
intelligent  person.  These,  surely,  are  undeniable  truths. 


If  we  credit  the  story  at  all,  the  essential  question  here 
is, — Was  Lazarus  dead  ?     It  is  due  to  Jesus  to  first  con- 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  421 

sider  what  was  his  own  private  opinion  about  that  mat- 
ter— an  opinion  which,  fortunately,  we  are  enabled  still 
to  read ;  for  the  intermeddlers  with  the  Gospels  have 
made  a  fatal  mistake  in  their  "  doctoring  "  of  this  narra- 
tive, by  attempting  to  "  amend "  instead  of  to  "  strike 
out."  Jesus,  in  important  and  confidential  matters,  had 
rarely,  if  ever,  trusted  any  of  his  disciples  save  the  fa- 
vorite three, — Peter,  James  and  John.  A  powerful  mo- 
tive (and  perhaps  a  knowledge  that  it  might  be  impossi- 
ble to  blind  them  as  to  the  facts),  induced  him  to  extend 
an  unusual  confidence  to  all  his  disciples,  in  this  matter. 
He  knew  it  would  send  a  genuine  and  deathly  sorrow 
into  the  hearts  of  his  devoted  followers  to  announce  to 
them  the  death  of,  or  any  real  danger  to,  their  beloved 
friend  Lazarus.  Had  there  been  any  real  fears  of  his 
dying  they  would  have,  with  one  voice,  besought  Jesus 
to  fly  to  his  relief.  And,  had  he  neglected  to  do  so, 
their  confidence  in  him  would  have  been  forever  shaken. 
Jesus,  being  well  advised  of  their  feelings,  as  well  -as  of 
the  real  nature  of  what  was  to  occur,  determined  to  be 
frank  with  them.  When,  therefore,  the  message  came 
to  him — "  he  whom  thou  lovest  is  sick,"  Jesus  told  his 
disciples  that  "  This  sickness  is  not  tmto  death,  but  for 
the  glory  of  God,  that  the  Son  of  God  might  be  glorified 
thereby"  Here,  then,  is  a  voluntary  and  positive  dec- 
laration that  Lazarus  would  not  die.  There  is  no  word 
here  which  it  is  possible  to  make  either  obscure  or  equiv- 
ocal, and,  if  Lazarus  did  die,  he  did  that  which  Jesus 
had  positively  asserted  he  would  not  do.  His  assertion 
is  not  only  unmistakable,  but  he  proceeds  to  show  that 
he  meant  what  he  said,  by  assuring  them  that  the  sick- 
ness of  Lazarus  was  for  a  special  object,  and  by  frankly 


422  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

declaring  what  the  real  object  was, — namely,  "  that  the 
Son  of  God  might  be  glorified  thereby."  But,  Whom 
did  he  mean  to  designate  by  the  terms,  "  Son  of  God  ? " 
None  will  hesitate  to  answer, — "  Jesus  himself."  It  was 
for  the  purpose,  then,  of  "  glorifying "  himself.  But, 
What  exaltation  did  he  refer  to,  or  expect  to  secure  by 
its  aid  ?  Was  it  not,  plainly  and  manifestly,  the  glory  of 
acquiring  the  Messianic  throne  which  he  entered  into 
Jerusalem  to  establish  just  after  this  miracle,  amid  the 
hosannas  of  his  followers  to  him  as  "  King  of  Israel  ?  " 
Did  he  not  take  up  his  march  from  the  house  of  this 
very  Lazarus  and  while  crowds  of  people  were  still 
flocking  there  to  see  Lazarus  on  account  of  this  mira- 
cle ?  Jesus  does  not  express  himself  in  the  style  in 
which  we  should  express  it,  but  he  expresses  himself  in 
his  usual  phraseology,  and  with  as  definite  a  meaning  as 
if  he  had  said — "  you  need  not  fear  for  Lazarus  ;  he  will 
not  die  ;  his  sickness  is  only  to  aid  our  cause." 

His  positive  declarations  to  his  disciples  is  as  posi- 
tively confirmed  by  his  conduct.  For,  after  he  was  in- 
formed of  the  sickness  of  him  "  who  he  so  loved,"  he 
utterly  disregarded  the  appeal,  and  manifested  no  con- 
cern for  the  death  agonies  of  his  friend  or  the  anguish 
of  his  sisters,  but  quietly  remained  in  perfect  unconcern, 
for  three  or  four  days,  and  then  told  his  disciples  that 
he  was  "  glad  "  for  their  sakes  that  he  was  not  with  Laz- 
arus. It  was  only  after  Lazarus  was  dead  (?)  that  he 
went  to  Bethany,  and  he  himself  is  made  to  announce 
that  he  was  dead,  and  also  his  purpose  of  going  to  raise 
Lazarus,  or  "  wake  him  out  of  sleep,"  although  he  had 
received  no  message  with  regard  to  him  save  that  he 
was  sick  several  days  before.  It  was  only  necessary 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  423 

to  let  him  know  that  Lazarus  was  sick,  that  he  might 
know  the  time  the  operations  or  performances  were  to 
commence.  How  the  remainder  of  the  programme 
would  be  carried  out  he  already  knew.  How  did  he 
know  these  facts,  unless  they  had  been  pre-arranged  ? 
That  he  had  no  supernatural  knowledge  is  shown  by  the 
fact  that  he  had  to  be  informed  of  the  sickness  of  Laza- 
rus. How,  then,  did  he  come  to  tell  his  disciples  how 
the  affair  would  end,  and  to  announce,  and  act  upon  the 
fact  of  death  (?)  without  any  further  information  than 
that  Lazarus  was  merely  sick.  As  the  time  approached 
for  him  to  enter  upon  the  stage  and  perform  his  part  of 
the  programme,  he  said  to  his  disciples  "  our  friend  Laz- 
arus sleepeth,  but  I  go  that  I  may  wake  him  out  of 
sleep."  His  disciples  replied  "  Lord,  if  he  sleepeth,  he 
shall  do  well."  Here,  after  the  so-called  death  of  Laz- 
arus, he  fully  confirms  what  he  had  previously  told  them 
of  the  object  and  result  of  this  sickness.  He  speaks  of 
Lazarus  as  still  alive,  and  his  disciples  clearly  so  under- 
stand him.  Thus  far,  the  matter  is  consistent  and  une- 
quivocal. But,  in  what  follows,  it  is  almost  impossible 
not  to  recognize  the  over-zealous,  but  not  over-wise,  in- 
terference of  some  subsequent  intermeddler  or  inter- 
polater,  and  quite  impossible  not  to  recognize  the  results 
of  after-thought,  by  whoever  written.  The  narrative, 
after  stating  the  announcement  by  Jesus  and  the  grat- 
ification expressed  by  his  disciples,  abruptly  says,  "  How- 
beit  Jesus  spake  of  his  death  ;  but  they  thought  that  he 
had  spoken  of  taking  of  rest  in  sleep."  Here  we  have, 
abruptly  inserted,  a  commentary  upon  the  meaning  of 
Jesus,  and  the  thoiights  of  his  disciples.  After  thus  tell- 
ing us  what  Jesus  meant,  it  is  then  abruptly  said  that 


424  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

— "Then  said  Jesus  unto  them  plainly,  Lazarus  is 
dead."  A  patch  rarely  fits  well :  and  this  double  patch- 
ing produces  double  incongruity.  Why  should  Jesus 
have  first  told  them  that  Lazarus  slept,  only  to  have  to 
plainly  tell  them  that  he  was  dead  ?  Why  use  words 
which  meant  that  he  was  not  dead,  and  which  he  knew 
they  so  understood,  if  he  did  not  mean  it  ?  If  he  knew, 
and  meant  to  say,  that  he  was  dead,  why  did  he  not 
"  plainly  "  say  so  at  first  ? — especially  as  he  had  already 
assured  them,  in  direct  terms,  that  he  would  not  die  ? 
Why  this  useless,  quibbling  and  equivocation,  only  to 
immediately  tell  them  the  fact  "  plainly  ?  "  Was  it  the 
right  thing  to  thus  palter  with  an  affair  so  solemn  as 
this,  or  to  trifle  with  the  feelings  of  his  followers  on 
so  harrowing  a  matter?  Unfortunately,  however,  the 
patch,  even  such  as  it  is,  does  not  cover  the  whole  rent. 
The  interpolater,  perceiving  the  fatal  effect  of  this  denial 
of  the  death  of  Lazarus  by  Jesus  himself,  has  attempted 
to  remedy  the  matter,  in  the  first  place,  by  making  a 
puerile  play  upon  the  word  "  sleep,"  and  by  charging  the 
fault  on  the  disciples  for  taking  the  real,  instead  of  the 
figurative  meaning  of  the  word.  But  even  this  will  not 
satisfy  him, — or,  perhaps,  failed  to  satisfy  some  later 
transcriber  and  amender.  It  was  apparent,  upon  reflec- 
tion, that  the  mere  assertion  of  the  author  or  writer  as 
to  what  Jesus  meant,  could  not  control  the  plain  lan- 
guage of  Jesus  and  the  interpretation  put  upon  it  by  all 
who  heard  it,  and  which  he  knew  they  put  upon  it,  with- 
out correcting  them.  It  was  necessary,  therefore,  to 
have  Jesus  himself  tell  them  that  he  did  not  mean  what 
he  said, — but  that  Lazarus  was  really  dead.  But  the 
author,  in  his  anxiety  to  get  rid  of  the  word  "  sleep," 


JESUS  AND  HIS  MIRACLES.  425 

never  paused  to  think  of  the  utter  inconsistency  of 
Jesus'  conduct  with  this  figurative  interpretation,  nor  to 
perceive  that  his  explanation  did  not  cover  the  former 
express  declaration  of  Jesus  that  Lazarus'  sickness  was 
not  unto  death,  but  was  for  the  express  purpose  of  aiding 
Jesus  himself.  There  can  be  no  quibbling  about  words 
here :  the  word,  "  sleep,"  not  being  used  at  all.  These 
intermeddlings,  therefore,  have  only  resulted  in  expos- 
ing the  purpose  of  their  introduction,  and  in  making 
Jesus  an  unfeeling  and  ungrateful  friend  to  Lazarus  and 
his  sisters  and  a  deliberate  deceiver  of  his  trusting  fol- 
lowers, without  affecting  the  validity  of  his  first,  most 
unequivocal  and  fatal  declaration.  These  vain  attempts 
to  save  the  miracle  has  only  slandered  the  performer. 

Enough  can  be  gathered  from  the  narrative  to  judge 
the  probable  nature  of  the  transaction.  Whatever  oc- 
curred had  clearly  been  pre-arranged  between  Jesus  and 
these  devoted  disciples  at  Bethany.  The  message  an- 
nouncing to  Jesus  the  sickness  of  Lazarus  was  to  furnish 
no  unexpected  news  to  Jesus,  but  only  to  advise  him  of 
the  time  of  the  commencement  of  the  performance,  with 
a  view  to  guide  his  own  entrance  upon  the  stage.  His 
own  language  and  conduct  proves  this.  He  expressed 
neither  surprise  nor  grief  at  the  announcement.  Nor  did 
he  make  any  move  towards  going  to  his  relief.  Instead  of 
paltering  with  his  disciples,  as  is  afterwards  represented, 
their  intense  grief  and  alarm  at  the  message  of  danger, 
not  only  appealed  to  his  feelings,  but  placed  his  own  in- 
difference and  apathy  in  such  an  incomprehensible  and 
discreditable  contrast,  that,  he  was  impelled  to  be  frank 
with  them.  He  could  only  deceive  them  in  this  matter 
at  the  risk  of  losing  their  confidence  and  affection.  He 


426  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

therefore  explained  to  them  that  Lazarus  was  not  going 
to  die— that  his  sickness  was  for  the  purpose  of  aiding 
the  common  cause — was  for  the  purpose  of  glorifying 
him,  Jesus.  He  received  no  message  of  Lazarus'  death, 
but,  after  waiting  two  or  three  days,  announced  the 
denouement  of  the  matter  to  his  disciples,  before  he  had 
ever  heard  it  himself  ;  and  expressed  his  own  gladness 
at  the  opportunity  it  furnished  him,  and  his  purpose  of 
departing  for  Bethany.  While  expressing  this  gladness 
and  showing  this  utter  unconcern  to  those  in  whom  he 
had  confided,  we  find  him  "  groaning  "  and  "  weeping," 
when  he  gets  to  Bethany  —  (where  strange  eyes  are 
watching  him) — in  a  manner  which  greatly  impressed  the 
witnesses.  This  inconsistency  was  very  consistent. 
There  was  cause  for  being  glad,  and  he  might  well  ex- 
press that  gladness  before  his  confidential  co-workers. 
The  case  was  reversed,  however,  when  he  had  to  act  as 
if  he  really  believed  that  Lazarus  was  actually  dead. 

Up  to  the  time  of  the  resurrection  scene  there  had 
been  no  person,  so  far  as  appears  from  the  narrative, 
who  had  seen  Lazarus  either  while  sick  or  when  dead, 
save  his  two  sisters.  For  aught  that  appears,  also,  none 
had  ever  seen  him  placed  in  that  "  cave,"  or  seen  him 
after  he  was  there.  Nor  did  any  of  those  present  go  in 
to  see  him  at  the  time,  nor  were  any  invited  to  look  upon 
the  body  or  to  witness  its  return  to  life,  although  many 
witnesses  were  present  even  from  Jerusalem.  The 
"  cave  "  was  inclosed  with  a  stone,  and  as  Jesus  removed 
it  he  bade  Lazarus  come  forth,  without  even  himself 
going  in  ;  and  Lazarus  came  out,  still  bound  in  his 
grave  clothes  "  hand  and  foot."  An  astonishing  feat, 


JESUS    AND    HIS    MIRACLES.  42  / 

one  would  think,  that  of  walking  out  before  the  crowd 
when  thus  bound  "  hand  and  foot ! "  During  all  this 
process,  so  stupendous  and  divine — (if  true) — there  is  not 
a  word  or  exclamation  or  embrace  by  Lazarus,  nor  by 
his  sisters  or  any  of  those  present.  There  was  neither 
surprise  nor  joy  expressed  by  any  one,  believer  or  dis- 
believer. After  narrating  the  fact  of  Lazarus'  reap- 
pearance, we  are  merely  told  that  many  of  those  who 
"  came  to  Mary,"  believed  ;  and  that  others  disbelieved, 
and  "  went  their  ways  to  the  Pharisees,  and  told  them 
what  things  Jesus  had  done."  We  have  no  information 
at  all  as  to  th&fact  of  death,  save  through  the  after-talk 
of  the  sisters.  There  is  no  statement  of  his  disease  or 
burial  ;  nor  have  we  any  assurance  that  he  had  been  in 
that  "  cave  "  one  hour  before  the  arrival  of  Jesus,  or,  if 
he  had  been  placed  there  several  days  before,  there  is 
literally  nothing  to  assure  us  that  he  had  remained  there, 
or  that  he  may  not  have  come  out  every  night,  or  may 
have  even  secretly  visited  Jesus  on  the  Jordan  during 
his  supposed  stay  in  the  cave.  Nor  is  there  the  slightest 
evidence  that  he  was  not  nightly  supplied  with  food  and 
water,  if  he  remained  in  the  cave.  We  know,  also,  of 
other  faithful  disciples  living  at  Bethany,  to  help,  if  help 
was  needed.  Notwithstanding  the  wholly  inconclusive 
nature  of  the  public  performances  and  the  manifest 
opportunities  for  collusion  and  pre-arrangement  and  the 
many  manifest  causes  for  suspecting  them — (such  as 
we  have  mentioned) — and  notwithstanding  there  were 
many  skeptical  witnesses  present,  there  was  no  pretence 
of  offering  an  opportunity  for  testing  the  real  nature 
or  verity  of  the  alleged  facts  or  for  the  slightest 
guaranty  against  imposition.  The  whole  affair  looks 


428  JESUS  AND   RELIGION. 

exactly  as  it  would  if  it  had  been  gotten  up  expressly 
for  the  purpose  of  glorifying  Jesus,  just  as  he  said 
it  was ;  and  without  any  intention  or  expectation  of 
having  it  tested  or  believed  by  the  intelligent  classes, 
but  only  for  the  purpose  of  reaching  that  great  class 
which  believes  by  mere  report,  and  accepts  without 
investigation.  For  that  class  it  will  still  serve.  But 
were  the  narrative  found  reported  by  the  followers  of 
any  other  founder  of  a  supernatural  religion,  under  the 
same  circumstances  and  in  the  same  words,  no  intelligent 
Christian  would  hesitate  to  condemn  it  as  an  imposture. 
And,  however  we  conclude,  here,  we  must  not  forget 
that  whatever  was  done  at  this  last  effort  to  sustain  his 
desperate  fortune  and  save  his  own  life,  Jesus  had 
excuses  for  it,  which  would  not  have  failed  to  have  con- 
trolling weight  with  most  men, — and  would  certainly  not 
have  failed  with  those  men  who  have  most  signally  con- 
trolled and  benefited  mankind.  Successful  men  have 
been  those  who  have  not  scrupled  to  deal  with  men  ac- 
cording to  their  capacity,  and  to  use  the  means  necessary 
to  the  end;  and  this  includes  all  the  founders  of  re- 
ligions. 


METHODS    AND    MOTIVES    OF   JESUS.  429 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

CHARACTERISTICS,    METHODS     AND    MOTIVES     OF   JESUS. 

IT  will  have  been  seen  that  we  contend,— -firstly : 
that  all  Being,  beings  and  things  necessarily  have  inher- 
ent, definite,  determinate,  arid  inevitable  proclivities  and 
modes  of  being  and  acting  in  each  and  every  possible 
state,  condition  and  relation ;  that  this  law-governed 
character  of  the  Universe  is  established  by  an  a  priori 
deduction  which  is  resistless  and  conclusive : — being 
true  if  there  is  no  God,  and  a  fortiori  true  if  there  be  a 
God  ;  that  this  a  priori  conclusion  is  confirmed  by  in- 
ductive proof  commensurate  with  that  upon  which  all 
human  knowledge  and  prescience  rests  ;  and  that  a 
matter  thus  established  is  incapable  of  disproof  by  mere 
ordinary  sensuous  observation,  and  therefore  forbids 
all  proof  of  miracles, — certainly  all  proof  of  them  by  the 
testimony  of  other  human  beings. 

Secondly:  That,  were  the  absolute  impossibility  of 
miracles  waived,  still,  a  fact  so  improbable  as  the  ex- 
ercise of  supernatural  power  by  a  human  being,  or  as 
the  exertion  of  any  mere  will-power  over  outside,  discon- 
nected and  unconscious  matter,  could  only  be  rationally 
established  by  complete  and  absolutely  indubitable  evi- 


43O  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

dence  of  all  the  facts  required  to  fully  and  clearly  exhibit 
the  miracle,  and  to  also  completely  negative  the  pos- 
sibility of  the  presence  and  operation  of  natural  causes. 
It  is  contended  further,  that  this  completely  conclusive, 
indubitable  and  exclusive  evidence  cannot  be  furnished 
through  the  testimony  of  others,  on  account  of  the  in- 
herent weakness  of  such  human  testimony  —  of  the 
ignorance,  imperfections  and  incompetence  of  the  wit- 
nesses as  observers  and  their  incapacity  and  bias  as 
narrators  :  that  all  human  experience  and  reason  show, 
that  even  the  sworn  testimony  of  any  number  of  even 
honest  and  intelligent  witnesses  is  more  likely  to  be  erro- 
neous than  that  such  overwhelming  negative  presumptions 
should  be  at  fault : — a  truth  which,  though  affirmed  by 
all  human  experience,  is  amply  sustained  and  exemplified 
by  the  evidence  in  cases  of  witchcraft  alone,  where  we 
find,  through  thousands  of  years,  the  ever  accumulating 
sworn-testimony  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  such  wit- 
nesses, backed  by  innumerable  solemn  judicial  and 
ecclesiastical  judgments,  positively  affirming  this  fact 
of  witchcraft  ; — a  fact  which  a  million  of  witnesses  could 
not  now  make  us  believe. 

Thirdly :  That,  consequently,  by  the  legitimate  prin- 
ciples and  laws  of  evidence,  he  who  denies  a  miracle  is 
neither  bound  to  prove,  or  to  disprove  anything,  nor  to 
furnish  or  show  a  natural  explanation  or  cause  for  any 
phenomenon  asserted  to  be  miraculous ;  but  that  the 
burden  of  proof  rests  upon  those  who  assert  the  miracle, 
not  merely  to  show  an  unaccountable  transaction,  but  to 
show  all  the  facts  which  could,  by  possibility,  have 
naturally  affected  or  influenced  it,  and  make  it  manifest 


METHODS    AND    MOTIVES    OF   JESUS.  43 1 

that  no  such  natural  facts  or  causes  could  possibly  have 
effected  the  actual  results  ;  unless,  indeed,  they  furnish, 
to  the  party  to  be  convinced,  the  freest  and  fullest 
invitation,  opportunities  and  facilities  for  examining  and 
testing  every  precedent  and  concurrent  fact  which  could 
influence  the  processes  or  results  ;  and  that  less  proof 
than  this  ought  not  to  entitle  any  such  pretensions  to 
even  serious  consideration,  if  even  a  respectful  hearing. 


Fourthly :  That  written  history  furnishes  but  a  par- 
tial, feeble  and  distorted  representation  of  the  past  facts 
relative  to  the  life,  motives  and  acts  of  Humanity  ;  that 
these  defects  in  human  histories  are  gross  and  monstrous 
in  the  proportion  in  which  they  have  been  influenced  by 
the  partisanship  and  partialities  of  their  authors  ;  and 
that,  throughout  all  human  experience,  that  partisanship 
and  partiality  which  has  proven  the  blindest,  most  un- 
scrupulous and  most  fatal  to  truth,  has  been  that  inspired 
by  religious  zeal  and  fanaticism  ;  —  that  ecclesiastical 
..histories  and  religious  writings  of  all  kinds  have,  every- 
where, proved  to  be  prejudiced  and  unreliable  evidence 
wherever  the  faith  or  founders  of  religions  or  churches 
have  been  concerned,  and  especially  among  early  and 
superstitious  peoples.  We  have  seen,  also,  that  our 
Gospel  narratives  are  singularly  -apt  and  striking  ex- 
amples of  this  universal  experience  of  the  unreliability 
of  early  religious  records. 

Were  these  several  considerations  allowed  their  due 
weight,  the  miracles  of  Jesus,  as  those  of  every  other 
founder  of  a  supernatural  religion,  would  never  have  re- 


43 2  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

quired  a  serial  and  special  examination.  But,  in  deference 
to  the  traditional  notions  of  our  fathers  and  the  credit 
still  awarded  them  by  worthy  people,  we  have  temporarily 
waived  these  advantages,  and  have  endeavored  to  ascer- 
tain the  probable  facts  .and  natural  explanations  of  the 
supposed  miracles  recited  in  the  Gospels,  under  the  sup- 
position of  the  possibility  of  miracles,  and  with  an 
endeavor  to  avoid  assigning  falsehood  or  unfavorable 
motives,  when  possible. 


Mr.  Beecher,  in  his  Life  of  Jesus  the  Christ,  as 
clearly  distinguished  two  periods  and  phases  in  the  pub- 
lic career  of  Jesus.  And  it  is  certainly  very  difficult  to 
perceive  how  any  intelligent  mind  that  is  familiar  with 
the  Gospels  could  fail  to  perceive  this  distinction.  For, 
while  the  mind  and  views  of  Jesus  gradually  developed 
and  changed  as  he  encountered  the  experiences  of  his 
life,  like  those  of  other  men,  his  public  career  certainly 
divides  itself  into  an  earlier  and  a  later  phase  which 
stand  not  only  distinguishable,  but  in  quite  marked  con- 
trast, both  in  opinions,  purposes  and  conduct.  These 
phases  cannot  now  be  definitely  divided  by  time,  although 
we  may  closely  approximate  the  period  of  the  change  ; 
but  the  division  is  readily  enough  marked  by  ideas  and 
purposes.  The  change  was  concurrent  with  his  deter- 
mination to  announce  himself  as  the  Jewish  Messiah — a 
determination  arrived  at  about  the  middle  of  his  public 
career. 


METHODS    AND    MOTIVES    OF   JESUS.  433 

The  later  or  Messianic  phase  of  his  career  exhibits 
him  both  in  a  more  intense  light  and  in  a  different  light. 
He  is  presented  to  us  with  a  new  and  higher  self-estimate 
and  with  new  and  higher  personal  aims,  as  well  as  under- 
new  and  more  exacting  and  exciting  conditions  and  in- 
fluences. Such  garbled  fragments  of  his  life,  purposes 
and  works  as  the  Gospels  furnish  us  during  this  period, 
require,  also,  more  care  and  insight  for  their  interpreta- 
tion. They  have  been  both  written  and  changed  under 
necessary  limitations  and  for  subsequent  and  altered 
purposes,  which  have  greatly  distorted  and  mutilated 
them,  and  added  much  to  their  incomprehensibility  and 
unreliability.  Without  a  comprehension,  indeed,  of  this 
change  in  the  character,  conditions  and  purposes  of 
Jesus  and  a  due  allowance  for  the  subsequent  motives 
and  necessity  for  concealing  the  true  nature  of  this 
change  and  for  adapting  the  conduct,  purposes  and 
language  of  Jesus  to  unreal,  different,  and  subsequently- 
necessitated  conceptions  and  objects, — on  the  part  of  the 
subsequent  writers  and  re-moulders  of  our  narratives,  all 
-true  comprehension  of  the  actual  facts,  aims  and  motives 
of  this  period  becomes  impossible.  We  have  been  com- 
pelled, therefore,  to  distinguish  these  phases  in  the  life 
and  labors  of  Jesus,  as  Mr.  Beecher  has  done,  and  to  in- 
terpret them  from  his  own  stand-point  in  each,  and  not 
from  the  altered  stand-point  of  his  successors. 


There  has  been  some  difference  of  opinion  as  to 
whether  the  Gospel  miracles  were  to  receive  a  mythic  ~»r 
a  natural  explanation.  While  I  have  read  little  of  the 

28 


434  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

views  of  others  on  this  question,  the  facts  in  that  regard 
have  seemed  to  present  no  serious  difficulty.  The  pre- 
tended, contradictory  and  useless  genealogies  of  Joseph, 
and  those  miraculous  announcements  and  recognitions 
of  Jesus,  and  those  miracles  concerning  him,  which  could 
neither  be  verified  nor  disproved  at  the  time  they  were 
written,  and  which  were  neither  subsequently  mentioned 
nor  used  during  the  life  of  Jesus,  nor  subserved  his  plans 
or  purposes,  nor  influenced  the  opinions  or  conduct 
of  himself  or  of  others  who  must  have  known  them, 
together  with  all  the  feeble  and  manifestly  gratuitous 
attempts  to  force  him  into  the  fulfilments  of  Scripture, 
are  so  manifestly  mythic  after-growths,  that  natural  ex- 
planations are  not  called  for,  even  if  they  were  possible. 
And, while  it  is  possible  to  attribute  many  of  these  alleged 
miraculous  phenomena  to  misconceived  or  exaggerated 
conceptions  or  reports  of  natural  phenomena,  they 
neither  suggest  such  natural  explanations,  nor  can  such 
explanations  always  escape  the  charge  of  being  strained 
and  far-fetched.  Being  purely  mythic  they  could  furnish 
no  such  consistent  and  rational  basis  of  real  facts  ;  and 
such  attempts  at  natural  explanations,  even  if  plausible, 
are  delusive. 

There  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  the  accounts 
which  we  have  of  the  miraculous  performances  of  Jesus 
himself  and  of  his  life  and  character  are,  not  only  partial, 
exaggerated  and  distorted,  but  have  received,  in  some 
cases,  the  clear  impress  of  the  myth-moulds  ;  and,  in  a 
few  cases,  have  probably  been  sheer  inventions.  But,  to 
deny  that  Jesus  existed,  and  was  condemned  and  cruci- 
fied for  conspiring  for  the  Messianic  throne  of  Israel  or 


METHODS    AND    MOTIVES    OF   JESUS.  435 

kingship  of  the  Jews,  or  to  believe,  in  other  words,  that 
Jesus  himself  was  a  myth,  requires  a  credulity  akin  to 
that  which  accredits  the  infallibility  of  the  Gospels  and 
the  divinity  of  Jesus.  No  adequate  cause  can  be  assigned 
for  the  known  results  which  ensued,  if  these  facts  be 
denied.  And  yet,  if  these  facts  are  conceded,  it  is 
rationally  certain  that  Jesus  must  have  had  some  support 
and  following  in  his  efforts,  as  well  as  some  grounds  or 
pretensions  by  which  he  won  such  following  -and  support. 
But,  as  he  himself  neither  had,  nor  claimed  to  have,  the 
mythic  pretensions  or  rights  which  have  since  been  set 
up  for  him,  but  depended  upon  God,  himself,  and  his 
own  "  marvellous  works,"  and  expressly  or  by  direct  im- 
plication denied  or  repudiated  all  others, — and  as  the 
actual  results  and  fame  which  followed  confirmed  all 
this,  and  speciaHy  pointed  to  his  supposed  miraculous 
powers  and  performances  as  the  source  of  his  pre- 
tensions and  successes,  the  conclusion  is  a  legitimate 
one,  that  he  was  actually  engaged  in  exhibiting  some 
such  performances.  And,  as  these  "marvellous  works  " 
-almost  uniformly  present  or  suggest  either  a  natural  ex- 
planation or  rational  solution  consistent  with  the  actual 
person*  and  characters  and  their  existing  purposes, 
means  and  circumstances,  and  often  actually  interpret 
and  exemplify  them,  as  well  as  conform  to  their  various 
changes  (according  to  the  true  rendering  of  them),  we 
may  safely  conclude  that  most  of  the  alleged  perform- 
ances of  Jesus  had  some  real  basis  of  facts  : — facts 
which,  if  fully  known  and  understood,  would  furnish 
their  own  explanation  and  vindicate  their  own  natural- 
ness and  human  origin  in  every  case  and  beyond  cavil  or 
dispute. 


436  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

We  have  found  that,  over  and  above  all  the  general 
defects  of  the  record  and  of  the  "hear-say"  evidence 
and  unauthenticated  statements  it  contains,  there  are 
many  defects  and  discrediting  features,  both  in  the 
methods  and  performances  of  Jesus  and  in  our  present 
accounts  of  them,  which  are  fatal  to  them,  not  only  as 
divine  performances  and  records,  but  as  trustworthy 
evidence  and  reliable  history. 


We  have  found  such  a  lack  of  chronological  sequence 
in  the  events  recited,  and  such  want  of  consecution  and 
coherence  in  the  circumstances  and  details,  as  to  cast  a 
cloud  of  obscurity  over  a  very  large  portion  of  the  career 
of  Jesus.  And  even  where  we  have  special  events 
recited  or  explained,  the  recitals  are  too  meagre  and  im- 
perfect to  satisfy  the  rational  rnind.  We  find  a  uniform 
habit  of  bare,  meagre  and  positive  statement  by  the 
author,  which  furnishes  the  reader  no  means  of  dis- 
tinguishing between  the  personal  knowledge,  opinions 
and  beliefs  of  the  author  or  between  matters  spoken  on 
his  own  authority  or  on  the  authority  of  information, 
tradition  or  rumor.  The  number  of  devils  in  a  patient, 
and  what  they  knew,  felt  and  thought,  the  cure  of  a 
patient  which  has  never  been  seen,  the  thoughts'  and 
dreams  of  absent,  unknown  and  dead  people,  a  supersti- 
tion about  a  miraculous  pool,  and  all  other  matters  of 
belief,  however  absurd  or  however  impossible  to  have 
been  known  to  the  writer,  are  stated  with  the  same,  posi- 
tiveness  as  the  crucifixion  or  any  personally  known  fact. 


METHODS   AND    MOTIVES    OF  JESUS.  437 

The  miraculous  facts  and  transactions  recited,  we 
find,  also,  to  be  of  a  character  which  generally  requires 
the  observation,  investigation  and  attestation  of  persons 
of  a  wholly  different  order  of  mind  and  intelligence  from 
that  possessed  by  either  the  observers  or  the  writers  who 
have  given  currency  to  the  works  of  Jesus.  We  are,  at 
best,  compelled  to  depend  for  the  proof  of  a  miracle  upon 
the  observations,  opinions  and  credibility  of  unknown 
men  and  women  who  never  had  heard  of  natural  causa- 
tion or  natural  law,  and  who  never  questioned  even  the 
probability  of  miracles — of  men  and  women  who,  not 
only  believed  implicity  in  miracles  and  had  an  insatiable 
desire  to  witness  and  report  them,  but  who  had  an 
undoubting  faith  that  Jesus  could  perform  them,  and 
who  required  neither  investigation,  precaution,  test  or 
proof  to  convince  themselves,  and  who  were  profoundly 
and  personally  interested  in  asserting  and  proving  them. 
No  evidence  could  possibly  be  weaker.  The  evidence  of 
millions  of  such  witnesses  in  favor  of  a  miracle,  is 
literally  worth  nothing.  Oceans  of  such  evidence  has 
been  poured  fourth,  ad  libitttm,  for  Spritualism,  Mormon- 
ism,  Catholicism,  Mahometanism,  Buddhism,  ancr  every 
other  supernatural  pretension  which  has  deluded  man- 
kind. For  the  fact,  nature  and  stage  of  diseases,  as  well 
as  for  the  fact,  extent  and  permanency  of  the  relief 
given,  and  for  the  remedies  used,  we  are  compelled  to 
rely  upon  the  bare  assertion  of  the  subsequent  and  un- 
known author,  whose  very  best  information  could  only 
have  come  from  extremely  ignorant  and  superstitious 
people  who  knew  little  or  nothing  of  either  diseases, 
remedies  or  cures,  and  who  believed  all  diseases  were  the 
penalties  of  sin  and  the  results  of  supernatural  agencies 


438  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

— people  who  could  neither  decide  nor  report  upon  such 
facts  intelligently,  who  had  been  selected  expressly  for 
this  miracle-proving,  and  who  were  biased  in  their  reports 
by  a  blind  faith  and  controlling  interest. 


We  find,  further,  that  these  narratives  were  written 
many  years  after  Jesus  had  humiliatingly  failed  in  his 
Messianic  attempts  and  had  been  ignominiously  executed 
for  his  open  endeavors  to  become  King  of  the  Jews — at 
a  time,  in  fact,  when  it  was  impossible  to  look  upon  his 
public  efforts  as  other  than  most  humiliating  failures, 
and  when  his  supposed  resurrection  had  not  only  given 
a  new  life  and  impulse  to  the  movements  of  his  followers, 
but  also  had  given  a  wholly  new  phase  to  his  preten- 
sions : — in  short,  when  he  had  come  to  be  treated  and 
worshipped  as  a  God  and  a  Divine  Saviour  of  mankind 
and  a  vicarious  sacrifice  for  the  sins  of  Humanity,  instead 
of  an  active  aspirant  for  the  temporal  Messiahship  of 
Israel;  as  he  had  been  exclusively  and  universally  con- 
sidered up  to  his  failure  and  crucifixion.  A  new  Gentile 
religion  was  being  unexpectedly  developed,  of  which  the 
crucifixion  and  resurrection  of  Jesus  were  to  be  basic 
facts,  and  not  his  "  anointment "  as  King  and  his 
triumph  as  the  Jewish  Messiah ;  and  its  godmothers 
and  propagators  were  compelled  to  find  in  his  actual  and 
known  life  some  pretence  for  these  new  pretensions 
inaugurated  by  his  resurrection.  The  man  who  had 
failed  in  his  exclusively  Jewish  efforts,  and  who  had  even 
regarded  it  as  a  wrongful  throwing  of  the  "  children's 


METHODS    AND    MOTIVES    OF   JESUS.  439 

bread  to  the  dogs  "  to  heal  the  sick  child  of  a  Gentile 
mother,  had  to  be  made  appear  as  an  all-loving,  benef- 
icent and  self-immolating  sacrifice  for  even  these  Gen- 
tile "  dogs."  In  attempting  to  make  this  metamorphosis 
in  the  life,  character  and  purposes  of  Jesus,  they  were 
driven  to  dwarf,  modify  or  suppress  many  things  that 
were  most  important  to  an  elucidation  of  his  real  motives 
and  conduct,  on  account  of  their  manifest  demonstration 
of  the  purely  Jewish,  political  and  temporal  nature  of 
his  schemes  and  efforts.  From  a  like  motive  they  were 
impelled  to  aid  the  facts  by  additions  and  suggestions 
and  by  putting  a  new  face  and  interpretation  upon 
the  actual  motives  and  endeavors  of  Jesus.  It  was 
neccesary  to  force  the  reality  into  conformity  with  this 
new  and  wholly  religious  conception  of  his  life  and  mis- 
sion ;  and  the  disjointed  and  incoherent  fragments 
of  his  life,  character,  sayings  and  aims  which  they  have 
used  as  a  skeleton  for  their  remodelled  Jesus,  have  been 
clipped,  plastered  and  re-shaped  by  their  Procrustean 
processes,  until  they  are  neither  complete,  concordant, 
consecutive,  consistent,  nor  rational,  but  compel  us 
to  mine  and  explore  these  metamorphosed  fragments 
for  a  possible  and  rational  conception  of  their  original 
nature  and  connections.  We  are  compelled,  also,  to  do 
this,  not  with  the  aid  of  the  authors  of  this  metamorphosed 
conglomerate,  but  in  defiance  of  them  ; — the  intent  and 
rationale  which  they  give  us,  leading  to  no  rational 
solution  at  all,  but  only  to  inconceivability,  contradiction 
and  mystery.  Such  are  the  real  causes,  indeed,  of  the 
insoluble  mysteries  which  the  record  presents  even  to 
the  mind  of  Mr.  Beecher.  The  difficulty  and  mystery 
did  not  exist  in  the  actual  life  and  purposes  of  Jesus, 


44O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

the  son  of  Joseph  and  Mary,  but  in  the  life  and  purposes 
of  the  re-created  and  remodelled  Jesus,  the  Son  of  God. 
It  is  difficult  to  create  a  character  and  life,  and  still 
more  difficult  to  adapt  a  real  life  and  character  to  a 
false  mask.  They  are  achievements  which  even  Genius 
can  only  approximate :  and  the  Evangelists  were  not 
geniuses.  To  their  lameness  and  incompetence  in 
this  regard,  Mr.  Beecher  and  his  Christian  brethren 
chiefly  owe  their  insoluble  mysteries,  the  Skeptic  his 
derisive  weapons,  and  the  Rationalists  their  means  of  a 
true  solution  of  the  actual  facts. 


We  have  found,  that  the  performances  usually  deemed 
miraculous  are  not  even  asserted  to  be  miracles  in  their 
narration,  and  that  they  furnish  no  pretence,  at  least  to 
the  modern  mind,  for  calling  them  such.  Certainly, 
none  of  the  miracles  were  ever  proved  or  verified,  in  any 
form  ;  and  it  may  be  asserted,  with  almost  equal  posi- 
tiveness,  that  nothing  is  ever  stated  from  which  a 
miracle  could,  prima  facie,  be  inferred.  For  the  nar- 
ratives are  not  only  insufficient  in  affirmative  recitals, 
but  are  utterly  neglectful  of  negativing  either  deception, 
delusion,  collusion  or  the  possibility  of  a  natural  explana- 
tion. Whether  we  have  suggested  the  true  explanations 
of  the  various  performances  of  Jesus  is  for  the  Reader  to 
judge.  That  we  have  reached  the  approximately  "true 
renderings  of  the  facts  we  have  no  hesitation  in  believing. 
Nor  would  our  failure  to  do  so  in  any  particular  case, 
argue  the  impossibility  of  such  an  explanation,  even 


METHODS    AND    MOTIVES    OF   JESUS.  44! 

upon  the  meagre  material  furnished  by  the  Gospels ; 
since  other  natural  explanations  are  possible,  and  there 
are  always  the  explanations  of.  delusion,  collusion  and 
pre-arrangement,  which  have,  in  rfo  instance,  been  pre- 
cluded or  provided  against.  That  such  meagre  and 
biased  recitals  should  have  furnished  the  means  for  so 
many  and  so  plausible  natural  explanations  as  have  been 
given,  is  sufficiently  conclusive  as  to  the  nature  of  the 
real  facts 

Without  any  effort  to  examine  and  expose  the  con- 
flicting and  inconsistent  statements  of  the  Gospels,  we 
have  casually  met  with  sufficient  proofs  of  them  to  show 
the  real  nature  and  unreliability  of  this  written  testi- 
mony; while  their  neglect  of  important  facts  is  con- 
stantly being  exhibited  by  the  supply  which  one  Gospel 
furnishes  for  the  neglect  of  others.  We  not  only  never 
know  when  we  have  the  real  facts,  but  we  may  be 
always  sure  that  we  never  have  the  full  facts.  Their 
mere  silence  constitutes  not  the  slightest  presumption 
against  the  existence  of  any  adverse  fact. 


We  have  also  been  impressed  with  the  unmistakably 
and  purely  human  and  fallible  character  of  both  Jesus 
and  the  Gospels,  as  well  as  of  the  absurd  impossibility 
of  his  most  effective  miracles,  by  reason  of  the  belief 
maintained  by  both  Jesus  and  the  Evangelists  in  the 
existence  of  innumerable  minute  and  invisible  devils 


442  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

who  seek  to  inhabit,  "possess"  and  torture  both  men 
and  animals,  and  who  have  superhuman  knowledge  and 
prescience,  and  can  understand  and  converse  about 
most,  if  not  all  the  affairs  of  God  and  men ;  and  also  by 
their  belief  that  human  diseases  were  divine  punish- 
ments inflicted  for  men's  sins  of  all  knds,  and  that  the 
forgiving  of  their  sins  and  the  curing  of  their  bodily 
infirmities  were  equivalent,  if  not  identical  acts,  and 
similar  superstitious  beliefs — beliefs  which  are  not  only 
not  Godlike  and  infallible,  but  absurd  and  fetichistic. 
And  yet  the  infallibility  of  the  Gospels  and  the  intel- 
lectual status  and  infallibility  of  Jesus  and  the  truth  of 
his  most  numerous  and  most  effective  miracles  are 
irrevocably  staked  upon  the  truth  of  these  crude  and 
long  discarded  beliefs !  That  both  Jesus  and  his  Apostles 
did  have  such  beliefs  and  acted  upon  them,  are  facts 
which  are  so  often  and  so  indubitably  proved  in  the 
Scriptures  as  to  defy  all  possible  misconstruction. 


We  have  not  failed  to  observe,  also,  the  striking  fact 
of  the  utter  absence,  in  every  case  of  healing,  of  any 
allusion  to  the  after  condition  of  the  patients  who  were 
operated  upon,  such  as  would  enable  the  reader  to 
know  or  judge  whether  the  relief  asserted  to  have  been 
given  was  brief  and  perhaps  imaginary  or  was  complete 
and  permanent.  The  usual  habit  of  Jesus  was  to  tell 
the  patient  he  was  well,  and  to  direct  him  at  once  to  take 
up  his  bed  and  walk  or  go,  unless  he  himself  were 


METHODS    AND    MOTIVES    OF   JESUS.  443 

absent  or  was  immediately  going  elsewhere.  In  no 
instance  does  there  appear  to  have  been  any  examination 
of  the  patient,  then  or  afterwards,  nor  does  it  appear 
that  they  remained  with  them  Idng  enough  to  know 
anything  about  the  permanent  effects  of  the  remedies 
used.  These,  at  least,  were  their  habitual  methods. 
That  they  are  unsatisfactory  and  delusive  is  shown  by 
all  experience.  There  has  been  a  well  known  exemplifi- 
cation of  the  real  and  apparent  successes  of  such  a 
course,  as  well  as  its  still  more  real  delusions,  in  our 
own  day.  A  man  (whose  name  I  have  forgotten)  un- 
dertook to  heal  the  afflicted  in  precise  imitation  of  the 
ordinary  manner  of  Jesus.  He  performed  in  public 
halls,  before  thousands,  in  our  various  cities.  The  poor 
were  treated  publicly  and  without  costs.  The  wealthy 
were  treated  privately  and  for  pay.  In  his  public  per- 
formances the  afflicted  came  to  him  successively,  and 
were  almost  momentarily  treated  after  the  style  of 
Jesus  and  ordered  to  pass  on.  The  wildest  stories  were 
'circulated  as  to  his  successes.  To  a  few  it  seemed  to 
-have  been  of  real  service.  Few  failed  to  feel,  or 
imagine  that  they  felt,  some  kind  of  relief  under  the 
excitements  of  the  moment ;  and  many  of  their  cases 
were  reported  as  marvellous  cures.  But  when  the 
excitement  had  passed  and  the  results  were  inquired 
into,  it  was  found  that  the  relief,  in  almost  every  case, 
had  been  extremely  brief,  if  not  wholly  imaginary. 
Such  subsequent  inquiries  never  appear  in  the  Gospel 
performances.  Had  they  been  made  and  given  us, 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that  a  new  face  would  be  put 
upon  even  the  best  cures  pf  Jesus.  Without  them,  we 
must  also  remain  without  proof  or  assurance. 


444  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

It  is  noteworthy,  also,  that  Jesus  required  the 
implicit  faith  of  the  patient  as  a  condition  of  his  cure  ; 
that  he  habitually  brought  them  under  the  additional 
influence  of  tactual  relations  with  his  o'wn  body,  and 
required  a  certain  time,  however  short,  to  effect  his 
cures.  We  have  found,  further,  that,  in  cases  not 
nervous,  he  used  various  purely  physical  remedies,  and 
acknowledged  that,  even  in  certain  nervous  cases,  the 
operator  must  not  only  exert  the  influence  of  his  own 
confidence  or  faith,  but  must  have  his  powers  exalted  by 
fasting  and  prayer.  Except  in  cases  of  "possession" 
his  disciples  healed  by  anointing  with  oil  (Mark  vi.  13). 
Besides  resorting  to  these  natural  remedies  and  in- 
fluences, it  would  seem  that  in  no  single  instance  in 
which  he  proposed  to  heal  the  absent  (who  could  not 
be  subjected  to  such  natural  influences)  is  there 
evidence  showing  that  the  person  was  healed,  or  that 
any  information  as  to  their  recovery  was  ever  either 
received  or  sought  for  by  Jesus  or  his  followers.  These 
facts,  showing  the  requirement  of  time  and  the  use  of 
natural  remedies,  we  have  been  compelled  to  regard  as 
plainly  and  absolutely  conclusive  of  the  purely  human 
character  of  the  powers  of  Jesus.  No  Divine  Being, 
having  voluntary  powers  of  causation  and  control,  would 
resort  to  such  distressing  delays  and  such  natural  and 
even  repulsive  agencies  as  we  have  seen  Jesus  resorting 
to ;  especially  as  the  chief  object  was  to  exhibit  to  others 
the  very  fact  of  his  divine  power  or  voluntary  contro1 
over  Nature. 


METHODS    AND    MOTIVES    OF   JESUS.  445 

We  have  been  impressed,  also,  with  the  fact  that,  out 
of  the  vast  number  whom  Jesus  is  said  to  have  healed, 
we  have,  in  about  a  score  of  reported  cases,  the  choicest 
selection — the  creme  tie  la  creme  of  his  successes;  which 
is  proved,  even  were  it  not  manifest,  by  the  fact,  that 
all  the  Gospels  substantially  concur  in  the  selection  of 
these  same  cases  as  the  proofs  of  his  divine  power.  We 
are,  then,  treated  to  the  best — to  the  hits  and  successes, 
to  the  exclusion  of  the  misses  and  failures  ;  although  we 
are  accidentally  treated  to  one  failure  to  exercise  a  devil 
that  was  giving  a  boy  fits,  and  to  a  general  confession 
of  his  incapacity  to  do  any  great  work  before  his  in- 
credulous neighbors  of  Nazareth.  We  are,  however, 
neither  told  that  he  did  not  fail,  nor  that  he-  could  not 
fail  in  other  cases.  It  was  simply  no  part  of  their  object 
to  record  his  failures.  Nor  would  failures  have  shaken 
the  confidence  of  his  followers,  or  perhaps  of  Jesus 
himself,  since  they  would  not  have  been  attributed  to 
lack  of  miraculous  power  in  Jesus,  but  to  the  lack  of 
faith  in  the  patient.  If  a  patient  was  not  healed,  or 
" relapsed,  the  answer  was  always  ready, — Lhe  had  lacked, 
or  had  lost,  faith.  The  patient  or  somebody  else  was 
always  at  fault  in  all  cases  where  he  failed. 


But  it  is  in  the  character  of  his  performances  them- 
selves, and  in  the  times,  places  and  manner  in  which 
they  were  performed  and  the  circumstances  and  needs 
which  evidence  the  peculiar  purpose  of  their  perform- 
ance, and  in  the  estimate  placed  upon  them  by  those 


44^  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

who  knew  his  purposes,  methods  and  performances,  that 
we  shall  find  the  most  overwhelming  mass  of  evidence 
against  his  miraculous  powers.  We  find  only  one  class 
of  his  performances  continued,  more  or  less  openly, 
throughout  his  career — namely,  his  healings  ; — chiefly 
of  a  nervous  type.  These  he  evidently  performed  with 
more  confidence  and  with  less  preparation  and  pre- 
cautions than  any  others.  It  was  by  his  healings  that 
he  had  first  won  his  fame,  and  to  them  he  had  exclusively 
devoted  himself  until  he  determined  to  struggle  fof  the 
Messiahship.  When  we  examine  his  subsequent  at- 
tempts to  impress  the  people  with  a  conception  of  his 
divine  powers,  other  than  those  of  healing,  we  find  them 
confined  to  raising  the  dead,  killing  a  fig  tree,  making 
imitated-wine,  magnifying  fish  and  bread,  and  to  such 
incidental  occasions  as  were  offered  for  impressing  his 
immediate  followers  with  his  power  over  the  aerial  and 
watery  elements.  In  every  instance  in  which  he  selected 
his  qwn  performance,  and  expected  others  to  be  present, 
he  selected  just  such  performances  as  were  not  only 
immeasurably  less  incomprehensible  than  every-day 
Hindoo  feats  and  susceptible  of  being  readily  performed 
by  natural  mean§,  but  by  just  such  means  as  could  be 
readily  supplied  by  his  own  followers.  In  no  instance 
does  he  attempt  to  perform  feats,  before  others,  which 
were  beyond  ordinary  human  agency  or  which  might 
not  readily  be  performed  through  the  exclusive  assist- 
ance of  his  own  disciples.  Nay,  more,  the  few  feats  of 
this  kind  which  -he  did  perform,  with  the  exception  of 
the  wine  feat,  were,  as  we  have  seen,  of  a  character  to 
point  directly  to  the  aid  and  connivance  of  his  most 
devoted  disciples.  With  millions  of  miracles  always 


METHODS    AND    MOTIVES    OF    JESUS.  447 

open  to  him,  which  would  be  above  all  suspicion  of 
every  kind,  he  never  attempted  to  soar  above  the  region 
of  the  most  ordinary  human  agency  and  the  cheapest  col- 
lusion, and  even  of  these,  he  performed  the  very  feats  in 
which  collusion  would  most  naturally  be  suspected.  He 
said  he  had  power  to  do  things  which  would  really  have 
been  miraculous,  but  he  took  care  not  to  attempt  them. 

The  times,  also,  at  which  he  performed  his  chief  mir- 
acles are  very  significant.  All  of  them  were  performed 
after  he  entered  upon  his  political  career,  and  were 
performed  at  times  when  the  exigencies  of  his  political 
or  personal  fortunes  clearly  point  to  their  special  use 
and  purpose.  Had  he  desired  to  throw  suspicion  on 
these  performances,  the  times  of  their  performance  could 
not  have  been  better  chosen. 


The  places,  also,  at  which  he  took  care  to  perform 
fiis  miracles  are  even  more  significant.  His  perform- 
ances were  chiefly  in  Galilee  instead  of  Judea  : — a  course 
greatly  calculated  to  prejudice  the  Jews.  The  greater 
number  of  them,  also,  were  performed  away  from  the 
towns  and  cities  and  from  the  observation  of  the 
intelligent.  None  of  his  great  miracles  were  performed 
in  the  larger  towns  or  cities.  In  Galilee  he  kept  clear 
of  the  Capitol,  and  confined  himself  to  the  fishing  towns 
and  villages  and  to  the  fishing  smack  and  unfrequented 
places.  Only  two  performances  are  reported  in  Jeru- 
salem, and- both  of  these  were  cases  of  private  healing, 
and  were  of  a  character,  as  we  have  seen,  most  suspicious 


448  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

and  most  ««miraculous.  No  candid  man  will  deny,  that 
the  places  selected  for  his  displays  of  power  were  such 
as  were  least  likely  to  satisfy  the  intelligent  or  to  con- 
ciliate the  Jews. 


The  entire  manner  of  his  performances  was  most  un- 
fortunate for  their  credit  and  influence.  His  method  was 
that  which  was  least  of  all  calculated  to  either  conciliate 
or  convince,  and  precisely  that  which  was  most  likely  to 
excite  suspicion  and  prejudice.  He  habitually  used 
means  to  accomplish  his  ends,  and  those  means  were 
natural  ones,  and  always  such  as  would  be  readily  recog- 
nized as  those  which  were  easiest  for  him  to  procure  in 
his  then  peculiar  situation.  For  example,  we  never  hear 
of  his  feeding  anybody  on  any  miraculous  food  except 
bread  and  fish,  and  never  hear  of  his  feeding  them  on 
bread  and  fish  in  Judea,  or  anywhere  else  except  in  the 
immediate  vicinity 'of  Capernaum — :the  only  place  his 
disciples  could  supply  them.  He  undertook  to  prove 
his  miracles  by  witnesses,  instead  of  exhibiting  them  to 
the  world — to  have  them  reported  to  the  intelligent  pub- 
lic, instead  of  letting  that  intelligent  public  see  and  judge 
for  themselves.  Instead  of  courting  and  defying  skep- 
ticism and  investigation,  he  shunned  both.  This  method 
in  itself,  was  fatal  to  all  confidence  and  to  all  hope  of  as- 
surance. No  method  could  have  been  weaker  or  more 
suspicious.  But  the  mode  of  his  proposed  proof  was,  if 
possible,  still  more  suspicious.  He  selected  for  his  per- 


METHODS    AND    MOTIVES    OF    JESUS.  449 

sonal  followers;  assistants  and  witnesses  the  most  credu- 
lous, devoted  and  subservient  men,  from  the  lowest  and 
most  superstitious  classes.  These  selected  and  devoted 
witnesses  and  servants  expected  to  be  exalted  through 
their  master's  success,  and  expected  that  success  to  be 
won  by  the  very  miracles  they  themselves  proved. 
They  believed  that  every  miracle  they  circulated  was  a 
means  of  bringing  them  one  step  further  towards  the 
high  positions  which  they  expected  in  the  coming  king- 
dom, either  from,  or  through  the  influence  of  Jesus  ; 
and  they  were  already  wrangling  over  their  expected 
spoils  before  the"  victory  was  won.  By  these  selected, 
trained  and  wholly  subservient  Galilean  servants  he 
proposed  to  prove  his  miracles  and  divine  power  to  the 
Jewish  world,  and  thus  pave  his  way  to  the  Jewish  Mes- 
siahship  ;  when  it  was  far  easier  to  have  gone  into  Jeru- 
salem and  into  the  Temple  itself  and  there  challenge 
the  utmost  scrutiny  of  the  highest  and  best  of  the  Jewish 
people,  and  to  have  performed  miracles  which,  in  num- 
ber and  kind,  would  be  resistless.  Nor  did  the  folly  stop 
Here.  It  is  manifest  that  he  did  not  fully  trust  even  all  of 
his  own  trained  witnesses.  Of  the  twelve  we  scarcely 
ever  hear  the  names  mentioned,  except  those  of  the 
favored  and  trusted  trio.  He  selected  three  confidential 
assistants  as  an  "  inner  circle ;  " — namely,  Simon,  whom 
he  dubbed  "  The  Rock,"  and  the  two  brothers — James 
and  John — whom  he  dubbed  "  Sons  of  Thunder."  The 
"  Rock  "  was  to  have  supreme  power  to  "  loose  and  bind  " 
on  Earth,  and  to  be  keeper  of  the  Keys  of  Heaven. 
The  "  Sons  of  Thunder  "  were  modestly  content  to  sit 
on  the  right  and  left  hand  of  the  throne  of  Jesus — the 
two  chief  dignities.  Such  were  his  more  confidential 

29 


45O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

assistants  and  witnesses.  The  rest  me'rety  believed,  and 
did  what  they  were  told,  and  acted  the  part  of  super- 
numeraries. Upon  the  wild,  morbidly-extravagant,  and 
often  wholly  incomprehensible  declarations  of  Jesus 
himself,  and  the  testimony  of  these  three  subservient 
and  interested  co-workers  of  Jesus,  were  the  Jews  com- 
pelled to  almost  exclusively  depend  for  their  evidence  of 
his  miracles  and  pretensions.  With  these  coadjutors 
and  his  nine  dummies  he  sailed  about  the  Sea  of  Galilee 
in  their  fishing  smack,  and  rambled  on  foot  over  the 
country,  from  the  coasts  of  Tyre  and  Sidon  to  Jericho, 
performing  such  "works  "  as  opportunities  made  possible 
and  their  interests  demanded  ;  yet  always  keeping  their 
methods  from  the  public,  and  following  their  original 
plan  of  proving  their  miracles  by  themselves  and  their 
friends.  Their  "headquarters"  was  at  Capernaum, 
within  a  few  hours'  walk  of  their  capital  city,  and  yet  we 
never  hear  of  a  single  "  wonderful  work  "  in  Tiberias. 
Several  times  he  visited  Jerusalem,  and  talked  and  dis- 
puted much,  and  habitually  indulged  in  insulting  and 
berating  the  better  class  of  Jews  and  in  outraging  their 
notions  of  piety  and  propriety ;  but  in  all  these  visits, 
with  daily  opportunities  for  healing  and  miracle-working, 
we  have  the  narratives  of  but  two  "  works " — of  two 
patients  privately  healed  ;  and  both  of  these  on  the  Sab- 
bath day,  when  he  knew  that  the  religious  and  intelligent 
Jews  were  not  abroad  to  witness  his  proceedings  and 
would  be  greatly  shocked  by  his  selecting  the  Sabbath 
day  for  his  performances.  He  ranged  the  coasts  of 
Tyre  and  Sidon,  yet  his  sole  reported  work  was  an  ex- 
torted reply  to  the  importunities  of  a  way-side  woman. 
He  was  several  times  in  Samaria,  yet  his  one  reported 


METHODS    AND    MOTIVES    OF   JESUS.  451 

performance  consisted  of  a  long  private  talk  at  the  well 
with  an  adulteress.  He  was  at  Gadara,  yet  his  single 
reported  performance  was  one  with  a  crazy  man  out 
among  the  tombs,  and  the  destruction  of  some  hogs,  for 
which  he  was  unanimously  invited  to  leave  the  country. 

The  Gospels  clearly  show  that  Jesus  habitually  avoided 
the  cities  and  towns,  as  well  as  the  intelligent  public  and 
incredtdous  observers  of  all  classes,  in  his  miracle-working. 
Those  manifestations  of  his  personal  influence  which 
were  real  and  natural,  but  were  of  a  character  to  be  in- 
comprehensible and  mysterious  to  even  the  intelligent 
Jews,  he  was  less  cautious  in  exhibiting ;  and,  in  a  few 
instances  of  his  healings,  there  may  have  been  intelligent 
persons  present.  But,  if  so,  they  were  neither  furnished 
the  opportunity  for  testing  and  judging  the  real  merit  of 
his  performances  ;  nor  did  what  they  did  see  at  all  con- 
vince them  of  his  divine  powers.  The  great  body  of  his 
reported  miracles,  however,  were  performed  privately  or 
before  his  select  witnesses  ;  and  then  rumored  abroad 
by  them  in  their  own  style.  Even  in  diseases  where  he 
distrusted  his  ordinary  remedies,  he  took  his  patients 
aside  or  treated  them  in  private,  and  with  strict  injunc- 
tions of  secrecy,  after  using  the  grossly  physical  reme- 
dies which  we  have  commented  on.  In  no  case  that  I 
remember  did  he  ever  perform  in  the  presence  of  law- 
yers, scribes  or  doctors,  or  in  that  of  either  the  Jewish  or 
Gentile  officials.  Even  solicitations  from  the  intelligent 
classes,-  to  witness  his  performances,  were  met  with  re- 
buke or  silent  refusal.  Nor  would  he  perform  before  a 
Pharisee,  except  in  one  or  two  cases  of  healing,  perhaps. 
He  turned  out  the  people  when  he  awoke  the  prostrate 


452  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

daughter  of  Jairus.  He  performed  his  wine  feat  at  Cana 
unbeknown  to  the  guests,  and  without  witnesses.  He 
went  off  into  -the  mountain  and  to  a  desert  place  to  per- 
form at  his  two  fish- feasts.  There  were  no  witnesses  at 
all,  save  the  patient,  in  near  half  his  miracles.  Most  of 
the  remainder  had  only  his  disciples,  and,  in  the  most 
difficult  of  them,  only  his  three  confidential  servants  and 
co-operators.  There  were  none  but  his  disciples  present 
when  the  fig  tree  was  cursed  ;  nor  when  he  walked  upon 
the  water  ;  nor  when  he  stilled  the  tempest ;  nor  when 
he  sent  some  2000  devils  into  as  many  Jewish  hogs  ; 
nor  when  his  three  favorites  woke  up  and  found  the 
"transfiguration"  going  on;  nor  when  the  matter  of 
the  "  tribute  money  "  was  going  on  ;  nor,  as  we  contend, 
when  he  was  performing  the  delusive  part  of  furnishing 
food  for  the  multitudes. 

In  no  instance  did  he  invite  inspection  or  investiga- 
tion of  his  performances,  or  the  examination  of  his 
patients,  either  before  or  after  his  operations  ;  nor  did  he 
ever  give  notice  of  his  intention  to  perform  any  partic- 
ular miracle,  so  that  others  might  have  had  an  oppor- 
tunity of  watching  his  movements  or  preparations,  but 
habitually  allowed  his  works  to  take  the  by-standers  by 
surprise  ;  nor  was  there  ever,  in  a  single  instance,  even 
an  attempt  made,  by  anybody,  to  investigate,  inspect,  or 
test  any  of  his  performances.  He  required  to  have 
everything  his  own  way,  at  his  own  time  and  place,  under 
his  own  conditions,  and  with  his  own  chosen  assistants, 
and,  if  necessary,  an  exclusively  credulous  and  friendly 
audience  or  even  the  exclusive  presence  of  his  chosen 
witnesses  or  of  his  three  favorite  coadjutors.  What 


METHODS    AND    MOTIVES    OF   JESUS.  453 

would  we  think   of  such   miracles,   so  worked,  and   so 
proved  now  ! 

There  is  nothing,  perhaps,  which  more  strikingly 
illustrates  and  exposes  the  true  character  of  the  powers 
and  performances  of  Jesus  than  his  utter  disinclination, 
and  more  especially  his  singular  inability,  to  perform 
before  either  critical  observers  or  even  before  common 
people  who  were  incredulous.  In  few  cases  did  he  ever 
venture  to  perform  before  skeptical  persons,  of  whatever 
grade  of  intelligence ;  and  in  none  did  he  succeed,  save, 
possibly,  in  a  few  cases  of  healing.  The  matter  of  Laz- 
arus we  here  ignore  as  being  either  a  fiction  or  a  clear 
case  of  collusion.  And  even  in  that  case  he  failed  to 
convince  the  spectators.  At  the  summit  of  his  fame  he 
went  back  to  Nazareth,  the  home  of  his  mother  and 
her  family,  and  of  his  own  youth,  and  attempted  to 
preach  and  perform  before  his  old  neighbors  who  had 
known  him  from  infancy.  But  the  Gospels  naively  tell 
us  that  he  could  perform  no  great  work  there,  and  throw 
tire  blame  of  the  failure  on  the  people  instead  of  the 
performer.  They  gravely  tell  us  that  he  could  not  do 
his  mighty  works  on  account  of  their  unbelief :  making 
Divine  power  impotent  because  the  people  who  were 
present  did  not  believe  in  the  possession  of  such  power 
by  the  performer  !  Does  not  such  a  fact  and  such  an 
admission  probe  to  the  very  marrow,  and  lay  bare  the 
naked  human  skeleton  of  this  pretended  God  ?  His 
divine  power  having  become  powerless  before  his  old 
incredulous  acquaintances,  he  left  Nazareth,  never  to 
return.  It  was  a  bad  place  for  Divine  Power  to  be  at. 
But  his  old  natural  and  human  powers  were  not  so 


454  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

abashed  or  overcome  by  the  incredulity  of  a  few  ignorant 
villagers,  but  stood  their  ground  sufficiently  to  enable 
him  to  heal  a  "  few  sick  folk."  Do  not  such  facts  speak 
volumes  ?  And  remember, — these  are  Gospel  facts  and 
Gospel  reasons,  not  mine. 


These  manifest  weaknesses  and  defects  in  the  powers, 
methods  and  performances  of  Jesus  were  not  then,  as 
they  are  now,  plastered  over  by  nineteen  centuries  of 
construction,  nor  shielded  by  the  impenetrable  aegis  of 
infallibility  or  the  obscuring  and  dazzling  halo  of  divine 
sanctity.  The  intelligent  public  heard  of  them  and 
estimated  them  then,  as  we  should  estimate  them  were 
they  being  performed  or  exhibited  by  some  unlearned 
and  'lowly  village  carpenter  with  such  astounding  pre- 
tensions, now, — only  far  less  skeptically  and  critically. 
Intelligent  men,  even  in  those  credulous  and  miracle- 
believing  times,  turned  from  them  with  disgust.  His 
old  neighbors  were  so  indignant  at  his  pretensions  and 
his  attempted  performances  among  them,  that  they  were 
ready  to  mob  him  as  an  impostor.  His  contemporaries 
generally  regarded  him  as  insane  or  "  possessed."  His 
own  mother  and  his  brothers  had  no  faith  in  his  preten- 
sions, but  regarded  him  as  "  beside  himself."  His  fam- 
ily not  only  tried  to  get  control  of  his  person,  and  re- 
strain him  on  this  account,  but  his  brothers,  at  a  later 
period,  gave  him  some  very  grave  advice,  which  is  of 
record.  From  that  advice,  brief  as  the  record  is,  we  can 


METHODS    AND    MOTIVES    OF   JESUS.  455 

catch  the  key-note  to  the  common-sense  public  opinion 
of  the  Time  in  regard  to  his  course  of  action.  Their 
advice  implies  also  a  charge  and  a  rebuke.  They  told 
him,  directly  or  inferentially,  that,  while  he  was  seeking 
public  recognition  as  the  Messiah  of  the  Jews,  he  kept 
himself  in  Galilee,  and  performed'his  works  there  ;  that 
while  he  sought  to  be  known  "openly"  or  by  the  public, 
he  performed  his  works  in  secret ;  and  that  his  objects 
and  pretensions  called  upon  him  for  corresponding  evi- 
dences and  conduct  on  his  part — demanded,  in  fact,  that 
he  should  go  to  Judea  and  Jerusalem,  and  there,  at  that 
head-quarters  and  centre  of  Jewish  life  and  intelligence, 
to  show  himself  to  the  world,  and  let  them  see  Who  he 
was  and  What  he  was.  This  is  the  clear  intent  and  sig- 
nificance of  the  conversation  recorded  in  the  seventh 
chapter  of  John.  Such  council  was  plainly  right,  and 
plainly  needed.  Jesus,  indeed,  confesses  the  justice  of 
this  charge  of  secrecy,  by  his  instructions  to  his  disciples, 
in  which  he  says — "  What  I  tell  you  in  darkness,  that 
speak  ye  in  light,  and  what  you  hear  in  the  ear,  that 
preach  ye  upon  the  house-tops." 


Looking  back,  in  the  most  general  way,  over  the  sin- 
gularly defective  and  unreliable  accounts  of  these  spe- 
cially selected  performances,  we  are  compelled  to  say 
that,  instead  of  their  establishing  the  divine  nature  and 
power  of  Jesus,  they  produce  upon  the  rational  mind  the 
most  profound  conviction  that  they  were  not  miracles,  nor 


456  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

the  works  of  one  havin-g  superhuman  power.  Besides  the 
fact  of  the  selection  of  his  performances  by  himself,  and 
the  fact  that  he  selected  such  as  were,  at  best,  inconclu- 
sive, while  countless  others  were  always  at  hand  which 
were  conclusive  in  their  nature  by  being  clearly  beyond 
all  human  agency,  as  well  as  all  the  various  other  objec- 
tions we  have  urged,  the  rational  mind  is  driven  to  utterly 
repudiate  both  the  mode  of  his  performing  and  his  mode 
of  establishing  his  performances.  A  miracle-worker  who 
proposes  to  prove  his  private  miracles  by  his  own  chosen 
assistants  and  witnesses,  at  once  destroys  all  claim  to  a 
considerate  hearing.  When,  furthermore,  he  chooses 
these  assistants  and  witnesses  from  the  most  credulous, 
ignorant  and  superstitious  class,  and  for  their  special  in- 
dividual faith  and  subserviency,  and  they  become  his 
habitual  and  trained  personal  servants  and  followers,  and 
perform  their  office  of  witness-bearing  under  the  full 
belief  that  every  miracle  they  prove  shoves  their  master 
one  step  nearer  to  a  throne  and  themselves  another  step 
towards  the  most  exalted  dignities  and  honors,  and  that 
his  fortunes  and  their  own  are  dependent  upon  the  suc- 
cessful establishment  of  these  very  miracles,  then  the 
whole  matter  becomes,  not  only  unreliable,  but  immeas- 
urably suspicious.  When,  furthermore,  he  requires  to 
have  everything  his  own  way  and  in  his  own  hands,  and 
performs  his  feats  in  the  precise  places,  times  and  man- 
ner not  to  convince  the  intelligent  public,  but  to  excite 
their  suspicion  and  distrust — performs  them,  also,  with- 
out offering  to  any  one  the  opportunity  to  inspect,  in- 
vestigate or  test  his  proceedings,  and  always  uses  natural 
means  in  aid  of  his  alleged  divine  power,  then  the  matter 
sinks  below  the  plain  of  rational  investigation.  The  fact 


METHODS    AND    MOTIVES    OF   JESUS.  457 

that  the  accounts  of  most  of  these  selected  performances 
do  not  amount  to  even  a  prima  facie  statement  of  a  mir- 
acle, and  the  fact  that  they  uniformly  fail  to  exclude  a 
natural  explanation  or  collusion,  and  generally  furnish  a 
plain,  or  a  highly  probable  natural  explanation,  consti- 
tutes a  further  reason  for  rejecting  their  miraculous 
origin.  That  intelligent  men  of  the  time,  and  the  gen- 
eral public,  as  well  as  his  own  family  and  old  neighbors 
who  were  most  familiar  with  the  man  and  the  facts, 
treated  him  and  his  miracles  and  his  miraculous  powers 
with  utter  contempt,  anger  or  pity,  in  an  age  when  mir- 
acles were  so  readily  credited  and  accepted,  is,  certainly, 
highly  confirmatory  of  our  adverse  decision.  If  the 
Virgin  Mary  and  her  other  children  did  not  believe  that 
her  oldest  son  was  the  Son  of  God,  begotten  by  the 
Holy  Ghost,  or  in  any  of  his  high  pretensions,  one  may 
at  least  be  pardoned,  now,  for  adopting  their  views.  His 
divine  power  was  impotent  to  impress  even  the  super- 
stitious and  credulous  people  of  his  own  day  with  a  be- 
lief in  his  miraculous  powers  and  divine  mission.  If  the 
power  of  Jesus  was  a  divine  power,  therefore,  it  was  also 
a  divine  failure — a  failure  over  which  he  himself  both 
wept  and  cursed.  Failure  is  not  a  special  evidence  of 
divine  power. 


JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 


THE    MAN. 

TURNING  from  the  miracles  to  the  man,  we  find  our 
selves  less  sure  of  our  conclusions  in  some  respects. 
For,  while  there  was  nothing  superhuman  in  any  of  the 
aspects  of  the  life,  conduct  or  teachings  of  Jesus,  they 
exhibited  singularities,  changes  and  contradictions  which 
forbid  us  to  measure  him  altogether  by  our  every-day 
experiences  of  men  ;  and  the  history  we  have  of  him  is 
so  garbled  and  incomplete  as  to  add  obscurity  to  our 
other  difficulties  in  comprehending  him.  These  diffi- 
culties, however,  are  by  no  means  so  insurmountable  as 
to  prevent  our  forming  a  tolerably  accurate  general  con- 
ception of  his  character,  opinions  and  aims.  His 
fundamental  peculiarities  were  neither  numerous,  nor 
unparalleled  ;  alhough  they  colored  the  ideas,  motives 
and  impulses  which  shaped  his  conduct,  and  which  mis- 
directed and  clouded  the  closing  or  culminating  period 
of  his  public  career.  Always  a  disturbing,  they  grew  to 
be  an  ever  more  controlling,  element  of  his  life. 

We  think  there  can  be  little  doubt  as  to  the  nature 
of  the  mysterious  influence  which  Jesus  actually  exerted 
over  the  deranged  and  afflicted.  The  nature  of  this 
power  has  been  already  pointed  out.  It  was  his  sole 
extraordinary  power  ;  and  it  was  to  it  that  he  owed  his 
early  fame  ;  and  during  that  earlier  period  we  find,  from 
the  enumeration  in  Matthew,  that  his  successes  were 
confined  to  the  types  of  disease  which  might  fairly  be 
presumed  to  be  influenced  by  faith  and  personal  magnet- 
ism. In  other  cases,  both  he  and  his  disciples  used 
other  physical  remedies.  These  special  influences, 


METHODS   AND    MOTIVES    OF   JESUS.  459 

though  perfectly  natural,  were  unusual,  impalpable  and 
incomprehensible ;  and  were  well  calculated  to  impress 
both  Jesus  and  the  observers  of  his  healings  with  the  idea 
that  he  was  possessed  of  superhuman  powers,  and  that 
there  was  a  divine  charm  in  his  very  person  and  touch. 
This  power,  in  various  modified  degrees,  is  common 
everywhere ;  and  even  in  the  striking  degree  in  which  it 
was  manifested  by  Jesus,  it  has  furnished  many  ex- 
amples, in  both  ancient  and  modern  times.  It  is  a  well- 
known  and  recognized  power, — whatever  may  be  its 
source  or  modes  of  influence.  The  view  taken  of  it  in 
a  case  of  modern  occurrence  is  aptly,  but  quaintly,  ex- 
pressed in  the  report  of  a  Committee  of  the  British  Parlia- 
ment appointed  to  investigate  the  facts  concerning  one 
Dr.  Greatlake,  who  was  astonishing  the  people  by  his 
healings  through  this  same  influence.  After  investiga- 
ting the  facts,  the  committee  reported  as  their  conclusion, 
that  a  "sanitary  contagion  existed  in  Dr.  Greatlake's 
body  that  had  an  antipathy  to  some  particular  diseases 
and  not  others"  Could  anything  be  more  aptly  de- 
scriptive of  the  real  healing  powers  of  Jesus — as  exhib- 
ited by  the  Gospels  ?  Such  a  power  he  undoubtedly 
possessed, — reside  where  or  in  what  it  might,  and  had 
long  known  and  exercised  it  before  he  commenced 
preaching  the  "  Kingdom  of  God  : " — a  power  known, 
however,  only  to  be  misconceived  both  by  himself  and 
others,  according  to  the  ignorant  supernaturalism  of 
the  time.  It  induced  him  to  consider  himself  a  source  of 
the  very  principle  of  life — nay,  of  life  itself : — a  mistake 
sufficiently  natural  to  have  led  modern  magnetizers  to 
denominate  their  pretended  science,  Biology.  This 
mysterious  and  misconceived  bodily  influence,  operating 


460  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

upon  the  extraordinary  nervous  organization  from  which 
it  emanated,  coupled  with  the  peculiar  subject  and  excite- 
ments of  his  passionate  preaching,  and  stimulated  by  the 
wild  aspirations*  and  feverish  expectations  of  the  time 
and  by  outside  adulations  and  suggestions,  was  the 
shuttle  that  wove  the  "  uncanny "  thread  into  the  web 
of  the  thoughts  and  life  of  Jesus. 

In  the  then  existing  state  of  belief  upon  such  sub- 
jects, he  would  naturally,  if  not  inevitably,  have  con- 
cluded, that  his  mysterious  power  emanated  from  God. 
For  there  was  no  other  thought  than  that  it  must  have 
emanated  from  either  God  or  devil,  and  he  felt  that  he 
was  certainly  not  a  servant  of  the  devil.  The  peculiar 
nature  of  the  power  would  give  strong  conformation  to 
its  divine  origin.  It  was  not  only  beneficent  in  its  in- 
fluence, and  adverse  to  the  supposed  devils  who 
possessed  and  tormented  men,  but,  as  all  diseases  were 
then  regarded  as  punishments  fqr  sin  and  as  an  evidence 
of  the  Divine  anger,  he  would  naturally  conclude,  and 
did  conclude,  that,  as  his  power  to  heal  was  a  remission 
of  the  penalty  of  sin,  it  was  equivalent  to  a  power  to 
forgive  the  sin  itself,  which  was  clearly  a  divine  pre- 
rogative. Such  conclusions  were  not  unnatural  in  his 
age,  nor  illogical  from  his  stand-point.  That  they  power- 
fully, and  finally  abnormally,  affected  his  beliefs  and  the 
whole  tenor  of  his  life,  would  seem  to  be  a  conclusion 
pointed  to  by  the  entire  facts.  This  divine  power  of 
healing  the  afflicted,  of  controlling  the  little  devils  who 
entered  into  and  took  possession  of  their  bodies  and 
tortured  them,  and  of  forgiving  sins,  seemed  not  only  to 
be  at  his  command,  but  to  appertain  to,  and  reside  in,  his 
own  person.  He  conceived  himself,  and  seemed  to  others, 


METHODS   AND    MOTIVES   OF  JESUS.  461 

to  be  a  mysterious  health-restoring  and  life-giving  foun- 
tain, whose  very  touch  imparted  restoring  and  re- 
vivifying influences.  The  possession  of  such  powers, 
as  thus  construed,  operating  upon  the  super-exalted 
nervous  organization  of  a  religious  enthusiast,  would 
naturally  lead,  as  they  actually  did  lead,  to  unhealthy 
and  extravagant  results — results  which  would  continue, 
under  exciting  influences,  to  grow  ever  more  extrava- 
gant and  ever  less  coherent  and  rational.  Such  exciting 
causes  and  influences,  operating  upon  such  a  nature, 
under  ever  more  exacting  and  exciting  conditions,  might 
readily  and  naturally  drive  it  to  wild  extremes,  and  force 
it  into  wild  conclusions  and  aims.  None  of  these  pre- 
disposing causes  and  encouraging  influences  and  con- 
ditions were  lacking  in  the  case  of  Jesus.  His  fiery 
aspirations,  visionary  social  ideas  and  religious  enthu- 
siasm had  forced  him  upon  the  rostrum  as  a  religious 
and  social  reformer,  and  had  driven  him  into  the  ranks 
and  the  wild  dreams  of  the  Adventists,-  and  to  become  the 
co-worker  with  the  Baptist  in  preaching  and  preparing  for 
the  imminent  coming  of  the  Messiah  and  the  "Kingdom 
of  God","  and,  with  them,  the  utter  overthrow  of  the 
existing  order  of  things  and  all  who  supported  them. 
His  preachings  (as  all  such  preachings  do)  grew  more 
and  more  impassioned  and  threw  him  into  constant  ex- 
citements, often  intensified  and  embittered  by  opposition 
and  hostility.  His  increasing  popularity  (for  a  while) 
and  his  widening  notoriety  as  a  healer  brought  his- 
powers  into  greater  requisition  and  added  to  his  alter- 
nate excitements  and  exhaustions.  His  belief  in  the 
divine,  yet  personal  nature  of  his  powers,  had  prepared 
him  for  a  belief  in  his  possession  of  an  extraordinary 


462  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

and  exceptional  nature,  and  to  dream  of  art  equally 
exalted  mission  and  destiny.  These  were  the  subjects 
which  absorbed  his  mind  in  connection  with  the  advent 
of  the  Messiah  and  his  Kingdom  which  he  preached. 
Their  association  in  his  mind  was  so  constant  and  inti- 
mate as  to  result  in  a  connection,  and  his  undefined 
longings  and  indefinite  conceptions  and  aims  began  to 
shape  themselves  under  this  new  connection.  The 
association  of  these  ideas  in  his  over-excited  and  morbid 
mind  had  engendered  strange  and  startling  whisperings 
in  his  soul ;  pointing  to  a  possible  solution  of  the  mystery 
of  his  exceptional  nature  and  divine  powers.  Might  not 
he  himself  \>z\ha.\.  priest  after  the  "order  of  Melchizedec" 
— the  very  Messiah  whom  he  and  John  were  preaching, 
and  whom  thousands  had  been  hourly  looking  for? 
That  seed,  once  set  germinating  in  the  hot  mould  of 
such  a  mind,  would  grow  rankly — as  rankly  as  Jonah's 
gourd. 

These  thoughts  were  not  reached  in  the  early  stage  of 
his  preaching.  They  were  never  hinted  by  him  until 
long  after  his  sermon  on  the  mount,  nor,  as  It  would 
appear,  until  the  matter  was  suggested  by  others.  And 
it  is  not  impossible,  that  the  first  connection  of  himself 
with  the  Messiahship,  even  in  his  own  mind,  was  due  to 
the  suggestion  of  some  excited  admirer  or  enthusiastic 
patient  among  the  crowd.  Such  a  suggestion  would  flash 
and  flame  through  such  a  mind  like  a  magazine  touched  by 
a  spark  of  fire.  Even  after  the  idea  had  been  suggested 
and  had  taken  root  in  his  mind,  and  he  had  consulted 
with  his  disciples,  privately,  as  to  whom  the  people 
thought  he  was,  and  had  exulted  over  the  fact,  that  the 


METHODS    AND    MOTIVES    OF   JESUS.          •»      463 

chief  of  his  own  followers  had  already  caught  the  same 
idea  (or  else  had  caught  the  cue  from  his  master),  he 
expressly  enjoined  it  upon  them — "  that  they  should  tell 
no  man  that  he  was  Jesus  the  Christ."  This  was  said  after 
he  had  sent  out  his  apostles  to  preach  the  coming  of  the 
"  Kingdom,"  and  had  said  to  them — "  ye  shall  not  have 
gone  over  the  cities  of  Israel,  till  the  son  of  man  be 
come."  He  had,  thus  far,  then,  not  even  expressly  pro- 
claimed himself  as  the  Messiah  to  his  own  followers, 
although  they  had  probably  seen  and  well  understood 
his  tendencies,  while  he  was  still  anxious  to  keep  this 
dangerous  pretension  from  reaching  the  public.  He 
seems  to  have  announced  his  identity  with  the  Christ  to 
the  public,  gradually  and  somewhat  cautiously  and 
obscurely.  His  incessant  cogitations  and  morbid  dream- 
ings  about  his  divine  nature  and  powers  had  drifted  him 
into  such  exalted,  but  confused  notions  of  himself  and 
of  his  relations  with  God  and  with  his  followers,  that 
they  were  inexplicable  to  others  and  obscure  to  himself. 
To  proclaim  his  own  view  of  himself  to  the  public  was 
sure  not  to  meet  their  Messianic  views.  He  had  no 
real  Messianic  pretensions  to  advance,  and  the  annuncia- 
tion of  the  wild  dreams  which  had  formed  the  basis  of 
his  own  delusion,  only  brought  down  upon  him  public 
indignation  for  his  blasphemy.  It  was  only  when 
morbidly  excited  that  he  attempted  to  expose  the  ex- 
treme belief  into  which  he  had  been  driven.  He  had 
concluded  that  his  powers  were  divine  powers  and  had 
emanated, from  God,  and  yet  that  they  were  inherent  in 
his  own  person.  They  were  God's  powers,  and  yet  he 
himself  possessed,  exerted  and  controlled  them.  Was 
not  he  himself,  then,  from  God  and  of  God  ?  Was  he 


4t>4    *  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

not  the  medium  through  which,  the  divine  life-giving 
and  life-restoring  and  sin-pardoning  influences  were 
poured  out  upon  the  world?  Having  the  power  of 
forgiving  sins — Was  he  not,  therefore,  a  physician 
and  saviour  of  sinful  souls,  also  ?  Was  he  not  the 
medium  and  direct  source  of  moral  as  well  as  of 
physical  life  and  health  ?  Was  he  not,  indeed,  a  very 
fountain  of  life,  immortality  and  moral  salvation  ?  and, 
Did  not  these  vitalizing,  pardoning  and  sanctifying 
influences  flow  from  his  very  person  upon  the  believing 
recipient  ?  Did  not  this  very  essence,  as  it  were,  of  his 
own  being,  reside  in  the  being  of  God,  and  yet  also  flow 
from  himself  into  the  believer  ?  Was  he  not,  then,  in  a 
striking  and  yet  strange  sense,  both  in  God  and  in.  the 
believer  ?  and,  Was  not  the  recipient  believer,  in  a  like 
sense,  in  Jesus,  and  through  him,  in  God  also  ?  Such, 
it  would  seem,  was  the  progressive  course  of  his  morbid 
thoughts  and  conclusions  as  he  advanced  in  his  morbid 
mental  career.  And  when  under  high  excitement  or 
driven  beyond  his  guard,  he  would  disjointedly  pour 
them  forth  with  strange  vehemence — strangely  mixing 
himself  up  with  God,  and  declaring  that  he  was  the  very 
bread  and  water  of  life,  and  inviting  the  people  to  eat 
his  flesh  and  drink  his  blood  that  they  might  never 
'thirst  and  never  die.  He  seems  to  have  known  that  the 
intelligent  classes  would  not  credit  these  pretensions,  or 
accept  them  as  appertaining  to  the  Messiah,  but  they 
also  drove  even  the  ignorant  masses  from  him,  and 
excited  general  indignation  against  him  as  a  blasphemer. 


METHODS    AND    MOTIVES    OF   JESUS.  465 

Looking  back  at  the  matter  under  the  light  which 
we  have  attempted  to  throw  upon  it,  we  are  no  longer  so 
amazed  at  finding  the  deliverer  of  that  radical,  but 
charmingly  beautiful  sermon  on  the  mount,  bursting 
forth,  under  excitement,  into  his  morbid  vein  of  ego- 
tism with  such  astounding  declarations  of  his'  being 
the  source  and  fountain  of  salvation  and  of  physical  and 
moral  life  as  to  drive  from  him  almost  the  entire  mass 
of  those  whom  his  real  powers  and  virtues  had  won  for 
him.  Nor  are  we  surprised  to  find  that,  in  his  cooler 
moments,  he  endeavored,  privately,  to  mollify  and  ex- 
plain some  of  his  more  extravagant  declarations  to  his 
twelve  followers,  and  condescended  to  explain  his  claim 
to  be  the  Son  of  God  in  a  sense  less  offensive  to  the 
Jews  and  compatible  with  his  mere  humanity— (John  x. 
33-37).  Nor  are  we  surprised  that  not  a  living  soul 
could  ever  understand  him  as  to  Who  and  What  he  really 
claimed  to  be,  or  upon  what  he  really  based  his  claim  to 
the  Messiahship, — no,  not  even  his  own  disciples.  Nor 
are  we  surprised  to  find,  that  he  offered  his  moral  salva- 
tion and  renewed  life  upon  the  condition,  and  through 
means  of,  faith  in  himself ;  since  we  have  seen  that  this 
faith  in  himself  and  in  his  power  to  heal  and  save  had 
been  an  efficient  element,  from  the  first,  in  his  healing 
or  sin-pardoning  and  life-giving  processes,  and  had  not 
only  been  considered  by  him  as  a  necessary  part  of 
them,  but  had  been  demanded  as  a  condition  of  their 
application  or  of  their  virtue  and  success.  He  had  early 
learned  the  astonishing  effects  of  faith  in  healing,  or,  as 
he  considered,  in  saving  from  the  penalties  or  condem- 
nation of  sin  ;  and  this  prerequisite  faith  in  the  patient  he 
continued  to  regard  as  a  necessary  adjunct  to  his  own 

30 


466  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

virtues,  moral  as  well  as  physical.  It  was  faith  in  him- 
self, therefore,  and  not  piety  or  virtue  which  was  the 
condition  of  his  salvation  or  moral  healing. 


The  qualifications  for  the  Messiahship  which  Jesus 
presented  to  the  ignorant  masses  of  Galilee,  or  were  ex- 
torted from  him  by  the  Jews,  were  not  at  all  those  at- 
tributed by  prophecy  or  expected  by  the  Jews.  Had  he 
been  all  he  claimed,  it  would  have  given  him  no  preten- 
sions to  the  Messiahship  of  prophecy,  however  much  it 
might  hav£  entitled  him  to  their  obedience  and  worship. 
The  Messiah  was  to  be  neither  God,  nor  a  divine  son  of 
God,  nor  the  divine  source  of  life  and  moral  regeneration 
to  those  who  believed  in  him,  nor  was  he  to  give  men 
his  flesh  to  eat  or  his  blood  to  drink,  nor  to  raise  the 
dead,  make  miraculous  fish  and  bread,  or  to  cure  fits. 
No  such  thought  of  him  had  ever  been  entertained  by 
either  people  or  prophet.  It  may  sound  strange  to  be- 
lievers, but  it  is  nevertheless  true,  that  not  a  single  qual- 
ification or  reason  advanced  by  Jesus  himself  had  any 
application  whatever  to  the  Messiah  of  the  Jews,  or  to 
the  programme  said  to  have  been  announced  at  his  birth 
by  Gabriel ;  while,  of  the  real  indicia  and  qualifications 
of  that  predicted  prince,  he  not  only  never  pretended  to 
have  a  single  one,  but  openly  contested  and  repudiated 
the  very  first  and  most  essential  of  them.  He  knew  that 
the  Messiahship  was  to  be  a  Jewish  affair,  and  the 
"  kingdom  "  which  he  first  preached,  and  afterwards  as- 


METHODS   AND    MOTIVES    OF   JESUS.  467 

pired  to,  was  a  Jewish  kingdom.  He  expressly  confined 
his  mission  to  the  Israelites,  and  in  his  commission  to 
his  disciples  he  expressly  says  :  "  Go  not  in  the  way  of 
the  Gentiles,  and  into  any  city  of  the  Samaritans  enter 
not"  Neither  he,  nor  they,  were  to  have  any  concern 
with  Samaritans  or  Gentiles.  And,  if  at  the  last  he 
made  any  change  in  this  regard,  it  was  only  when,  and 
only  because,  he  had  discovered  that  his  Jewish  scheme 
was  a  hopeless  failure.  It  was  only  under  great  pressure 
that  he  could  be  induced  to  exercise  even  his  healing 
power  on  the  suffering  Gentiles,  and  then  only  in  a  few 
cases  where  he  was  humored  and  flattered.  When  he 
had  been  finally  seduced  into  a  conception  that  he  him 
self  was  the  Messiah,  the  conclusion  had  been  reached 
through  the  subjective  processes  and  experiences  we 
have  already  indicated,  aided  by  the  adulations  and  sug- 
gestions of  the  crowd,  and  not  from  his  possession  of 
the  indicia  and  qualifications  of  the  expected  Messiah. 
Not  one  of  these  did  he  ever  possess  or  ever  claim.  The 
grounds  of  his  own  belief  were  subjective  and  personal, 
without  reference  to  Scripture  or  extraneous  relations  or 
signs,  and  they  had  been  engendered  by  the  mysterious 
character  of  his  personal  nature  and  powers  and  nour- 
ished by  the  adulations  of  a  Galilean  rabble  who  were 
ignorant  of  the  specialties  of  Jewish  prophecy.  Once 
morbidly  fixed  in  his  mind,  the  idea  needed  no  reason ; 
and  would  yield  to  none.  It  was  nourished  by  the  rich 
mould  of  the  delusion  of  which  it  was  born.  His  belief 
in  the  divine  character  of  his  own  nature  and  powers 
"had  been  the  sole  ground  of  his  own  belief  that  he  was 
the  Messiah,  but  this  ground  had  produced,  in  himself, 
an  immovable  conviction  that  he  was  the  real  Christ. 


468  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

This,  also,  was  all  he  had  to  offer  to  others.  As  in  all 
such  cases  of  morbid  convictions  the  demands  for  a  rea- 
son only  irritated  him,  and  incredulity  and  opposition 
angered  him.  He  could  not  offer  what  he  had*  not,  nor 
coud  he  prove  his  own  divine  nature  or  powers,  save  by 
his  own  assertions,  and  by  works  of  a  divine  nature.  He 
knew  it,  and  God  knew  it,  and  his  own  divine  works 
proved  it :  What  more  could  they  ask?  If  the  Jews 
could  not  see  it,  so  much  the  worse  for  the  Jews.  None 
but  a  wicked  and  adulterous  generation  would  ask  more. 
It  was  not  a  matter  of  "  signs  "  and  reasons,  but  of  faith ; 
and  he  thanked  God  that  He  had  hidden  it  from  the 
"wise  and  prudent,  and  revealed  it  unto  babes."  The 
"  wise  and  prudent  "  thought  that  God  had  given  his 
evidence  long  ago,  through  the  prophets,  and  had  not 
been  heard  from  since.  To  this  testimony  of  God  they 
thought  Jesus  ought  to  conform  ;  but  Jesus,  although 
contending  that  the  Scriptures  spoke  of  him  generally, 
— (that  is,  of  the  Messiah,  whom  he  himself  was),  would 
make  no  kind  of  endeavor  or  attempt  to  show  in  what 
particulars  or  respects  he  fulfilled  the  Messianic  proph- 
ecies. The  only  qualification  of  the  Messiah  which  he 
would  discuss  with  them  was  that  of  his  being  a  "  son 
of  David,"  and  this  he  denied.  Although  other  qualifi- 
cations were  mentioned,  and  his  fulfilment  of  them  de- 
nied, in  his  presence,  such  as  that  he  should  be  born  in 
Bethlehem,  he  would  take  no  notice  of  them  whatever. 
The  only  evidence  which  he  really  offered  the  intelligent 
Jewish  public  was  his  own  incomprehensible  assertions 
as  to  his  own  nature  and  pretensions,  and  "  works " 
which  he  refused  to  perform  before  them,  and  which 
they  could  only  hear  of  through  the  sources  we  have 


METHODS    AND    MOTIVES    OF   JESUS.  469 

already  characterized.  He  knew  that  his  own  "assertion 
was  not  proof,  and,  although  he  quibbled  about  the  law 
requiring  but  two  witnesses,  and  his  having  the  two  re- 
quired witnesses, — namely,  God  and  himself,  he  knew 
that  he  really  had  nothing  but  his  "  works  "  to  depend 
upon  before  others,  and  he  finally  said  to  the  Jews — "  If 
I  do  not  the  works  of  my  Father,  believe  me  not''  Here 
lay  the  whole  matter  in  a  nut-shell,  and  without  equivo- 
cation. True,  Jesus  knew  that  the  Jews  would  not  ac- 
cept "mere  miraculous  power  as  proof  that  he  was  the 
Messiah,  since  they  not  only  did  not  expect  such  powers 
and  performances  from  their  Messiah,  but  they  required 
the  prophetic  indicia  of  his  identity  and  claim, "and  con- 
sidered mere  miracles  as  performances  common  to  Gods, 
angels,  men  and  devils,  and  no  proofs  even  of  a  divine 
mission,  much  less  of  a  specific  claim  to  the  Messiah- 
ship.  But,  besides  having  no  proof  of  his  possessing 
miraculous  power,  the  Jews  had  no  conception  of  the 
real  meaning  of  Jesus  in  this  proposed  proof.  To  them, 
it  sounded  like  mockery ;  but  to  the  morbid  mind  of 
Jesus  the  proof  was  conclusive.  It  was  the  evidence 
which  he  had  himself,  and  which  had  convinced  himself. 
He  did  not  mean  simply,  that,  if  he  did  not  perform  mir- 
acles, then  to  believe  him  not.  He  meant  that,  if  he  did 
not  perform  the  works  of  God — that  is,  works  which  he 
supposed  no  other  man  had  ever  performed,  and  which 
were  the  peculiar  and  exclusive  prerogative  of  God,— 
namely  :  the  exercise  of  the  divine  power  of  healing, 
pardoning,  revivifying  and  regenerating  men.  Could 
man  or  devil  do  that !  If  not,  why  not  recognize  his 
divine  nature  and  his  mission  at  once,  and  accept  his 
own  declaration  that  he  was  the  Christ  ?  If  they  could 


47°  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

not  do  this,  then  it  had  not  been  "given  "  to  them  to  be- 
lieve, and  their  lack  of  faith  in  him  had  lost  them  the 
benefit  of  his  proffered  salvation,  and  they  stood  con- 
demned. This  was  his  view  of  the  matter ;  and  they 
might  look  to  themselves. 


Had  it  been  in  the  power  of  Jesus  to  prove  that  he 
had,  in  any  sense,  fulfilled  the  scriptural  requirements 
concerning  the  Messiah, — such,  for  example,  as  those  of 
his  birth  at  Bethlehem,  and  his  descent  from  the  royal 
line  of  David,  no  fair  mind  will  deny,  that  he  would 
gladly  have  done  so,  or  that  it  was  his  ditty  to  have  done 
so.  Nor  will  any  fair  mind  deny  that,  if  there  were  any 
such  miraculous  evidences  of  his  divine  recognition  at 
his  conception,  birth  and  various  periods  of  his  life,  as  is 
now  contended  for,  it  would  have  been  a  joy  as  well  as 
duty  to  have  taken  every  pains  to  establish  them  before 
the  proper  and  competent  parties  to  judge  them.  Nor 
can  it  be  denied  that,  had  he  possessed  the  divine 
power  now  claimed  for  him,  or  that  claimed  by  himself, 
he  Could,  and  would,  have  gone  at  once  to  Jerusalem, 
during  the  great  feasts,  and  have  demonstrated  that 
power,  to  the  entire  satisfaction  of  all  men.  That  he 
did  none  of  these  things  is  conclusive  proof,  under  the 
circumstances,  that  he  could  not ;  and  that  he  was  com- 
pelled to  rely  upon  that  which  he  did  rely  upon, — 
namely,  that  which  we  have  just  shown  and  endeavored 
to  explain. 


METHODS    AND    MOTIVES    OF   JESUS. 

No  doubt  many  persons,  swayed  by  an  education  based 
upon  the  results  of  a  century  of  moulding  and  forming  the 
Gospel-] esus  and  upon  eighteen  centuries  of  amendments 
and  superimposed  plasterings  and  interpretations,  under 
the  post-resurrection  conception  of  him,  will  be  astonished 
at  our  declaration  that  Jesus  was  endeavoring  to  reach 
the  Messianic  throne  of  Israel.  And  yet,  to  deny  it,  is  in 
plain  contravention  of  the  whole  current  of  Gospel  facts 
— is  to  render  his  life,  not  only  the  mystery  which  Mr. 
Beecher  confesses  it  to  be,  but  is  to  render  it  a  tissue  of 
unmeaning  endeavors  and  absurd  contradictions.  To 
say  that  his  political  doctrines,  aspirations  and  aims  were 
a  part  of  his  religious  ones,  is  but  to  say  that  he  was  a 
Jew;  but  it  is  nevertheless  impossible  to  eradicate  or 
rationally  ignore  their  existence ;  while  it  is  equally  im- 
possible to  suppose,  that  they  were  entertained  and  pros- 
ecuted with  a  pre-knowledge  and  purpose  that  they 
should  end  in  failure  and  in  his  own  crucifixion.  Let 
those  who  can  read  the  Gospels  and  still  doubt  this,  se- 
riously answer  to  their  own  consciences  the  following 
questions.  If  Jesus  was  not  aiming  for  the  temporal 
Messianic  throne  of  Israel,  for  what  object  were  all  his 
own  personal  exertions  and  the  organized  efforts  of  his 
followers  ?  Did  he  really  desire  the  Jewish  people  to 
accept  him  as  their  Messiah  or  did  he  desire  them  to 
reject  him  ?  If  he  desired  them  to  accept  him,  Did  he 
make  no  real  efforts  to  secure  that  acceptance  ?  If  he 
did  desire  and  strive  for  that  end,  What  did  he  suppose 
the  result  of  such  a  recognition  would  be  ?  Did  he  not 
know,  that  there  could  be  but  one  result,  namely  :  that 
they  would  anoint  him  as  Christ  and  crown  him  ,as  King  ? 
Did  he  labor,  and  make  his  disciples  labor,  for  years,  for 


4/2  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

a  recognition  which  he  knew  to  be  impossible  and 
wished  to  avoid  ?  or,  Did  he  do  all  this  on  purpose  to 
fail  and  be  crucified  ?  If  his  object  was  to  get  crucified 
for  the  sins  of  all  men,  or  of  believers,  why  did  he  con- 
fine his  projects  and  efforts  to  the  Israelites,  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  all  others  ?  Why  send  out  large  bands  of  his 
followers  to  arouse  the  Jewish  people,  and  none  others, 
for  the  immediate  reception  of  the  "  Kingdom  of  God," 
if  that  kingdom  was  to  be  a  kingdom  of  ghosts,  of  all 
kinds  of  people,  in  the  other  world?  Why  did  he  finally 
have  himself  proclaimed  king,  and  ride  into  Jerusalem 
in  triumphant  procession,  amid  shouts  of — "  Hosanna  to 
the  Son  of  David,"  and  upon  an  ass,  that  he  might  avail 
himself  of  a  prophecy,  saying — "  Behold  thy  king  com- 
eth  sitting  on  an  ass  ?  "  If  he  neither  was,  nor  intended 
to  be,  their  king,  How  could  he  fulfil  a  prophecy  which 
required  that  he  should  be  king  ?  If  Jesus  did  not  de- 
sire and  hope  that  the  Jews  would  accept  him  as  their 
Messiah,  Why  did  he  alternately  weep  and  curse  over 
his  failures  and  rejection  ?  and  Why  did  he  exclaim  "  O 
Jerusalem  !  Jerusalem  !  how  often  would  I  have  gath- 
ered you  together  as  a  hen  gathereth  her  brood  under 
her  wings,  but  ye  would  not  ? "  or  Was  it  in  the  other 
world  that  he  would  have  gathered  them  and  that  they 
refused  ?  Why  did  he  confess  on  his  trial  that  he  was 
King  of  the  Jews,  and  refuse  to  retract  it,  knowing  that 
his  confession  must  consign  him  to  a  punishment  the 
very  thought  of  which  had  made  him  sweat  blood,  if  he 
did  not  know  that  he  had  gone  so  far  that  all  denial  was 
useless  ?  His  disciples  who  had  followed  his  footsteps 
for  three-years,  who  had  heard  all  he  said  and  all  his  ex- 
planations and  all  his  plans  and  instructions,  and  who 


METHODS    AND    MOTIVES    OF   JESUS.  4/3 

had  entered  into  and  aided  all  his  schemes,  believed,  up 
to  the  last,  that  he  was  aiming  for  a  temporal  throne. 
Until  after  the  resurrection,  not  one  of  them  ever  sus- 
pected that  there  was  any  other  purpose  ;  while  all  sup- 
posed that  his  crucifixion  was  the  end  of  the  whole  mat- 
ter. Could  these  twelve  men  have  been  so  utterly  stupid, 
that  Jesus  could  never  awaken,  in  one  of  them,  a  single 
suspicion  of  his  true  purpose  in  all  this  time  ?  Or  was 
he  wilfully  deceiving  them,  knowing  what  they  thought 
and  expected  ?  If  these  men,  and  all  men  who  knew 
him,  understood  him  to  be  aiming  to  become  king,  and 
he  had  spoken  and  acted  in  a  manner  to  make  every- 
body believe  it,  and  had  had  himself  publicly  proclaimed 
as  king,  and  had  been  tried  for  it,  and  confessed  his 
guilt,  and  was  executed  for  it  with  the  title  of  "  King  of 
the  Jews  "  above  his  head,  Could  all  this  about  being 
king  have  been  a  pre-intended  delusion  and  a  lie,  known 
only  by  Jesus,  and  wilfully  and  delusively  encouraged 
and  concealed  by  him  ?  Further  suggestions  would  be 
useless.  Those  who  can  read  and  reflect  upon  those 
already  made,  in  connection  with  what  has  heretofore 
been  said  on  this  subject,  and  still  believe  that  Jesus 
neither  sought,  nor  expected,  temporal  recognition  and 
power,  are  hopelessly  "joined  to  their  idols." 

We  have  found  Jesus  having  given  evidence  of  the 
possession  of  an  extraordinary  physical  organization, 
one  endowed  with  wonderful  magnetic  power  and  a 
highly  exalted,  sympathetic  and  excitable  nervous  sys- 
tem ;  and  have  seen  him  exhibit  a  self-concentration  and 
self-consciousness  which  were  so  constant  and  extreme 
as  to  be  unfavorable  to  psychical  health  and  equilibrium. 
We  have  found  him  intensely  emotional  and  often  mor- 


4/4  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

bidly  so ;  easily  and  wildly  excitable ;  impatient  under 
opposition,  contradiction  or  disbelief;  and  subject  to 
rapid  and  extreme  mental  changes  and  to  sudden  and 
extreme  fits  of  exaltation  and  depression.  And  we  may 
add  others  which  are  both  inferable  from  his  nature  and 
exemplified  in  his  conduct.  He  was,  evidently,  morbidly 
sensitive,  suffered  keenly,  and  intensely  dreaded  both 
suffering  and  death  ;  although  capable  of  obstinately 
facing  the  inevitable.  He  was  morally  and  mentally 
brave,  but  physically  timid :  often  venturing  to  the 
point  of  courting  danger,  and  then  fleeing  with  sudden 
agility  when  it  menaced  him,  and  remaining  in  hiding 
until  it  had  passed.  Like  all  moral  and  social  theorists, 
his  conceptions  were  more  beautiful  than  practical,  more 
ideal  than  real ;  and  were  better  preached  than  practiced, 
even  by  himself.  His  affections  were,  at  times,  gushing  ; 
but  they  were  confined  to  his  own  class  and  to  believers 
in  himself.  He  preached  that  we  should  love  our  neighbor 
as  ourselves,  and  yet  his  conception  of  a  neighbor  was 
exemplified  by  the  "  Good  Samaritan,"  whom  none  could 
help  loving.  He  was  in  favor  of  dividing  everything 
with  the  poor,  and  yet  by  this  general  distribution  he 
was  always  the  receiver  and  never  the  giver  ; — since  he 
neither  possessed  anything,  nor  worked  that  he  might 
-earn  it.  He  offered  his  own  peculiar  gift  freely,  but  its 
bestowal  was  his  only  means,  hope  and  dependence  for 
winning  a  throne  ;  and  it  was  easy  to  say — "  thy  sins  are 
forgiven  thee."  He  tells  us  to  love  our  enemies,  and 
yet  no  man  ever  showered  more  continued  and  bitter 
curses  upon  his  own.  He  instructs  others  to  forgive 
their  offending  brother  seventy-seven  times,  and  yet, 
through  all  the  years  that  we  know  him,  he  implacably 


METHODS    AND    MOTIVES    OF   JESUS.  4/5 

repudiated  his  own  mother,  brothers  and  sisters,  simply 
because  they  could  not  believe  in  his  wild  notions  and 
pretensions.  He  tells  us  to  pray  for  those  who  despite- 
fully  use  us,  and  yet  he  constantly  insulted  and  abused 
those  who  even  questioned  or  disputed  his  own  divine 
claims,  and  expressly  declared  that  he  himself  did  not 
pray  for  any  one  save  his  own  disciples — (John  xvii.  9). 
He  tells  us,  when  we  are  smitten  on  one  cheek  to  offer 
the  other  cheek  to  be  smitten  also,  and  yet  we  never  find 
him  waiting  to  be  smitten  even  on  the  one  cheek  if  fleet 
running  could  save  him  ;  nor,  when  he  was  actually 
smitten,  do  we  find  him  inviting  a  repetition  of  the 
operation  on  the  other  cheek,  or  failing  to  rebuke  his 
smiter.  He  denounces  all  self-exaltation,  and  was  in- 
dignant at  the  Pharisees  for  their  pretentiousness  and 
their  ostentatious  piety  and  charity,  and  yet  no  man  has 
ever  put  forward  more  appalling  pretensions,  or  more 
immeasurably  exalted  and  lauded  himself  than  Jesus. 
He  exhorted  us  to  despise  the  things  of  "  this  world  "  and 
"  of  the  flesh,"  and  yet  he  confesses  that  he  had  won  the 
reputation  of  a  glutton  and  a  wine-bibber,  and  declined 
to  require  the  usual  fasts  to  be  kept  while  he,  the  bride- 
groom, was  present ;  and,  if  ever  he  refused  to  eat  or 
drink  the  best  that  could  be  had,  whether  with  gentle- 
men, publicans  or  sinners,  we  have  no  record  of  it.  He 
said  "  render  to  Caesar  the  things  that  belong  to  Caesar  ;  " 
and  yet,  he  contested  the  right  of  Caesar  when  tribute 
was  demanded  of  himself,  and  ^6nly  consented  to  pay 
it  to  avoid  the  consequences.  He  said — "  Blessed  are 
the  peace-makers,"  and  yet  he  declared  that  he  himself 
had  come,  not  to  bring  peace,  but  a  sword,  and  to  excite 
even  family  feuds  and  contentions.  He  ordered  Peter  to 


476  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

put  up  his  sword  in  Gethsemane,  and  sententiously 
declared,  that  those  who  drew  the  sword  should  perish 
by  the  sword, — when  Peter  had  struck,  like  a  man,  in  the 
common  defence  :  and  yet,  that  very  sword  had  been 
brought  there  for  the  very  purpose  of  defending  him 
against  that  very  arrest,  by  the  express  orders  of  Jesus 
himself,  given  only  a  few  hours  before,  when  he  had 
commanded  his  disciples  to  arm  themselves,  and,  if  they 
had  no  arms,  to  go  and  sell  their  very  garments  and  buy 
them.  He  commands  us  to  visit  widows,  orphans  and 
those  in  prison  :  but  When  in  all  his  life  did  he  visit  or 
minister  to  either  ?  We  might,  indeed,  show  many 
instances  of  such  inconsistences  in  his  teachings  and 
such  conflicts  between  his  precepts  and  practices,  were 
such  elaboration  deemed  necessary.  And  certainly  we 
may  say,  that  he  neither  propounded  a  new  idea  of  this 
life,  of  God,  or  of  a  future  life.  He  left  mankind  as 
ignorant  as  he  found  them. 


Such  would  seem  to  be  some  of  the  more  characteristic 
traits  of  Jesus,  and  such  as  will  more  especially  concern 
us  in  our  examination  of  the  closing  scenes  of  his  career, 
which  we  now  approach.  Our  past  investigations, 
doubtlessly,  will  enable  us  to  enter  upon  the  examina- 
tion of  those  scenes  with  at  least  an  assured  conviction 
that  they  must  be  interpreted  as  the  results  of  the  ideas 
and  conduct  of  a  mere  man.  If  we  cannot,  then  that  in- 
vestigation will  serve  to  still  further  enlighten  us  upon 
that  point. 


METHODS    AND    MOTIVES    OF   JESUS.  477 

Before  parting  with  the  subject  under  consideration, 
we  beg  to  offer  a  precautionary  suggestion.  The  assertion 
that  Jesus  and  his  disciples  used  unjustifiable  means  to 
secure  their  ends,  will  receive  less  credit  than  it  is 
entitled  to,  from  those  who  still  shrink  from  imputing 
such  conduct  to  persons  who  have  been  deemed  so 
infallible  and  sacred  ;  while  the  proof  of  the  assertion  is 
calculated  to  unduly  prejudice  them  in  the  mind  of  the 
skeptic.  Both  of  these  errors  may  be  avoided  by 
judging  these  men -according  to  the  moral  standard  and 
beliefs  of  their  age  and  class,  as  well  as  the  habits  and 
frailties  common  to  such  people,  so  situated.  Jesus  and 
his  disciples  were  neither  faultless  nor  infallible ;  nor 
comparatively  speaking,  were  they  bad  men.  It  would 
be  as  unjust  to  characterize  them  as  impostors,  as  it 
is  impossible  to  deny  that,  in  their  modes  of  effecting 
their  ends,  they  were  sometimes  guilty  of  disingenuous- 
ness  and  imposition.  Jesus  was  honestly  misguided  by 
his  own  peculiar  nature  and  powers.  He  had  an  earnest 
and  religious  nature,  and  his  aspirations  and  ultimate 
aims  he  supposed  to  be  in  accordance  with  the  divine 
will ;  while  his  moral  precepts  were,  as  a  whole,  ex- 
ceptionally good.  His  disciples,  also,  had  genuine  faith 
in  his  extraordinary  virtues,  views  and  promises.  Under 
such  circumstances,  then,  What  had  we  a  right  to  expect 
of  these  men  ?  Should  we  look  for  conduct  in  con- 
formity with  our  own  ideal  standards  of  right"  and  wrong, 
or  even  of  their  own  ideal  standards  ?  or  should  we  not 
rather  look  for  conduct  in  conformity  with  the  ordinary 
course  of  human  action  in  like  cases  ?  Judging  them, 
then,  by  this  practical,  legitimate,  and  ordinary  stand- 
ard, What  had  we  a  right  to  expect  ?  Has  not  all, 


478  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

human  experience  shown,  that  even  good  men,  in  our 
time  and  in  all  times,  who  are  struggling  to  advance 
a  cause  which  they  deemed  good,  and  especially  a  cause 
which  they  deemed  divine,  and  still  more  especially 
when  sustaining  supernaturalism,  will  resort,  and  have 
resorted,  to  disingenuous  means  to  effect  their  ends  ?  Is 
there  a  priest  or  preacher  on  earth  wholly  free  from  such 
a  charge,  even  now  ? 


THE    MEN    WHO    EXECUTED   JESUS.  479 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE     MEN     WHO     PROSECUTED,     TRIED      AND      EXECUTED 

JESUS. 

WE  cannot  understandingly  review  the  closing 
scenes  of  the  career  of  Jesus  without  having  freshly 
before  our  minds  the  character,  situation  and  relations 
of  the  men  who  controlled  the  course  of  those  events. 

Of  course,  the  central  figure  in  this  matter  was  the 
Roman  Procurator.  No  character  in  history,  save  that 
of  Judas  Iscariot,  has  been  so  damned  as  that  of  Pontius 
Pilate  ;  and,  without  doubt,  none  has  been  so  causelessly 
maligned  by  the  Christian  World.  That  his  name 
should  have  been  thus  consigned  to  infamy  by  the 
worshippers  of  Jesus  is  a  signal  instance  of  the  triumph 
of  blind  Fanaticism  over  Reason.  In  the  conduct  for 
which  he  stands  thus  accursed,  he  was  not  only  without 
a  stain  of  cruelty  or  injustice,  but  was  entitled  to  the 
lasting  gratitude  of  the  lovers  of  Jesus.  The  Christian 
record  itself  leaves  no  possible  doubt  either  as  to  his 
public  conduct  and  motives,  nor  as  to  his  earnest, 
sagacious  and  exhaustive  efforts  to  outwit  the  Jews  and 
save  Jesus. 

The  character  of   Pilate,  as  we  gather  it  from  the 


480  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

Gospels  and  Josephus,  would  seem  to  have  been  that  of 
a  man  who  was  obstinately  persistent  and  fairly  just  5 
but  secret,  politic,  cunning  and  superstitious.  His 
position  as  Governor  of  the  Jews  had  been  a  thorny 
one ;  and  he  had  learned  to  hate  as  well  as  fear  the  men 
he  ruled,  and  to  know  that  his  hate  was  returned,  with 
usury,  by  the  conquered,  but  dissatisfied  and  inappeasable 
Jews.  He  had  had  the,  perhaps  inevitable,  misfortune 
to  fall  into  a  deadly  feud  with  that  very  Official  Judea  or 
Temple  Party,  who  were  the  prosecutors  of  Jesus,  and 
who  were  finally  and  fatally  his  own  prosecutors.  We 
say  fatally,  for  they  finally  hounded  Pilate  to  banishment, 
as  they  did  Jesus  to  the  cross.  The  hate  was  mutual 
and  of  long  standing,  and  each  party  understood  that 
they  had  nothing  to  expect  from  the  other.  The  trial 
of  Jesus  was  but  one  more  encounter  of  strength  and 
cunning  —  another  "  round  "  in  the  "  mill  " —  between 
these  powerful  competitors.  Pilate  knew  that  to  save 
Jesus  was  to  run  a  stiletto  into  the  heart,  of  their  com- 
mon enemy.  He  could  "  stoop  to  conquer,"  and  he  did 
not  fail  to  treat  the  accusers  of  Jesus  with  politeness  and 
consideration.  But  his  animus  and  purpose  was  un- 
mistakably manifested.  So  long  as  he  hoped  to  avoid  a 
condemnation  of  Jesus,  he  used  every  possible  means  of 
conciliation  ;  but  when  he  was  outwitted,  or  rather  when 
he  was  forced  into  a  dilemma  by  the  obstinate  and  mor- 
bid perversity  of  Jesus,  he  gave  unmistakable  evidence 
of  the  gall  that  was  rankling  in  his  heart,  and  succeeded 
in  insulting  the  Jews  in  the  very  act  to  which  they  had 
forced  him. 

The   means   by  which  the  Jews   coerced   Pilate  is 


THE    MEN   WHO   EXECUTED  JESUS.  481 

neither  difficult  of  comprehension,  nor  left  to  inference. 
The  magic  words  which  finally  cowed  him  into  open  and 
seeming  acquiescence  with  the  desire  of  his  enemies 
point  directly  to  Pilate's  true  and  only  cause  of  alarm. 
Tiberius,  the  Roman  Emperor,  was  a  most  suspicious 
and  dangerous  tyrant.  To  incur  his  suspicion  of  lack  of 
fidelity,  was  to  incur  the  extremity  of  danger.  This  was 
well  understood  by  both  Pilate  and  his  enemies,  and 
right  here  lay  the  source  of  the  Jewish  power  over 
Pilate  in  this  transaction.  Loyalty  to  Tiberius  Caesar 
might  be  alleged  as  an  excuse  for  injury  to  the  Jews,  but 
to  refuse  the  demand  of  the  Jews  for  the  punishment  of 
.a  traitor  to  Caesar,  was  to  prove  his  own  disloyalty — was 
to  put  a  weapon  in  the  hands  of  his  enemies  which  he 
well  knew  would  be  fatal  to  himself.  Whatever  could  be 
done  to  save  Jesus,  either  by  stratagem  or  power,  with- 
out endangering  himself,  he  was  anxious  to  do,  and  did 
do.  He  knew  that  Jesus  was  impotent  to  injure  the 
Roman  power,  and  that  he  was  really  undeserving  of 
.death  for  his  mere  mockery  of  an  attempt  to  become 
King  of  the  Jews  ;  and  that  any  disturbance  which  he 
might  create  in  favor  of  Jewish  emancipation,  would 
only  give  him,  Pilate,  the  desired  opportunity  of  punish- 
ing them,  and  of  taking  away  the  power  they  still  pos- 
sessed of  opposing  and  annoying  him.  That  his  wife, 
Claudia  Procula,  was  an  earnest  advocate  for  the  ac- 
quittal of  Jesus  the  record  clearly  shows.  In  the  house 
of  Herod,  also,  to  whom  he  was  sent  for  trial,  he  had  not 
only  a  friend,  but  a  devoted  follower  in  Chusa,  the  wife 
of  Herod's  steward. 

We  know  further  that  Jesus  had  a  number  of  secret 


482  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

aiders  and  abettors  in  the  ranks  of  his  enemies.  Two 
of  his  friends  are  known  to  us  by  name, — Nicodemus 
and  Joseph  of  Arimathea  :  both  of  them  men  of  in- 
fluence, both  being  members  of  the  Sanhedrim,  and  one, 
and  perhaps  both,  being  wealthy.  These  secret  coad- 
jutors of  Jesus  soon  found,  that  it  was  of  no  avail  to 
offer  a  defence  for  Jesus  before  the  Sanhedrim,  since  the 
evidence  for  his  conviction  was  too  plain  for  denial,  and 
no  other  consideration  could  arrest  either  the  enmity  or 
policy  which  demanded  his  conviction  ;  while  the  very 
first  suggestion  of  a  defence  was  met  by  a  charge  of 
complicity  in  his  designs.  But  their  prudence  did  not 
amount  to  pusillanimity.  They  stood  by  him  to  the  last,, 
secretly  where  they  could,  but  openly  where  they  must. 
They  were  discreet  and  secret,  but  still  sagacious  and 
powerful  friends :  belonging  to  that  patriotic  class, 
doubtlessly,  who  were  anxious  to  encourage  agitation  for 
the  liberty  of  their  country,  but  who  had  too  much  to 
lose  to  venture  upon  an  open  advocacy  of  an  immature 
movement. 

Thus  we  find  Jesus  warmly  and  actively  (even  if 
secretly)  represented  both  in  the  households  of  Pilate 
and  Herod  and  also  among  the  powerful  members  of  the 
Jewish  government.  And,  while  our  knowledge  is  but 
fragmentary,  we  cannot  fail  to  perceive  that,  at  every 
point  of  hope  or  danger,  Jesus  had  friends,  or  at  least 
aiders,  to  both  warn,  aid  and,  if  possible,  save  him  ;  and 
that  Pilate  and  his  wife  were  not  only  his  active  and 
earnest  advocates,  but  that  the  trial  and  its  whole  man^ 
agement  and  the  whole  management  of  his  crucifixion 
and  the  entire  custody  and  control  of  his  person  were 


THE    MEN    WHO    EXECUTED   JESUS.  483 

in  the  hands  of  Pilate  and  of  those  over  whom  he  had 
absolute  control.  Pilate,  in  fact,  acted  as  executive  officer, 
judge,  and  counsel  for  the  prisoner.  His  power,  like  his 
inclination,  had  no  limit  save  his  dread  of  his  own  im- 
perial and  tyrant  master.  Nor  are  we  to  suppose  that  his 
commands  or  counsels  fell  on  unwilling  ears  in  this  mat- 
ter. For  it  is  not  to  be  presumed  that  the  confidential 
subordinates  and  faithful  soldiers  of  Pilate  would  fail  to 
sympathize  with  their  Chief  in  his  controversies  and 
purposes,  or  that  they  could  witness  the  hatred  of  the 
Jews  against  themselves  and  their  government,  as  well  as 
their  conscious  air  of  superiority  to  the  Gentiles,  without 
feeling  some  of  that  hatred  with  which  the  Jews  were  so 
generally  regarded  in  that  day.  We  shall,  therefore,  find 
Jesus,  from  the  time  of  his  appearance  before  Pilate,  hotly 
supported,  as  well  as  wholly  in  the  hands  of  those  who 
were  anxious  and  determined  to  save  him,  and  still  more 
anxious  and  determined  to  thwart  his  enemies.  The 
twelfth  verse  of  the  nineteenth  chapter  of  John  briefly,- 
but  sufficiently,  shows  the  position  of  Pilate — "  And 
from  thenceforth  Pilate  sought  to  release  him  ;  but  the 
Jews  cried  out  saying,  If  thou  let  this  man  go,  thou  art 
not  Ccesars  friend :  whosoever  maketh  himself  a  king 
speaketh  against  Casar" 


The  Jewish  Rulers  were  sagacious,  cautious  and  de- 
termined, and  thoroughly  understood  the  situation. 
They  knew  that  Pilate  was  aware  of  the  kingly  preten- 
sions of  Jesus,  but  also  knew  that  he  could  but  regard 


484  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

them  harmless  as  against  the  power  of  Rome.  They 
knew,  also,  that,  while  impotent  against  the  Roman 
power,  Jesus  might  excite  a  sufficient  riot,  in  his  efforts 
before  the  rabble,  to  furnish  Pilate  an  opportunity  for 
suppressing  it  by  arms,  and  of  charging  the  Jews  with 
rebellion  ;  and  thereby  secure  a  recall  of  whatever 
powers,  privileges  and  religious  autonomy  had  been  re- 
served to  them.  The  young  and  intractable  Galilean 
agitator  and  aspirant  was  a  standing  menace,  not  to 
Rome,  but  to  themselves.  There  was  neither  hope  of 
redemption  through  him,  nor  of  conciliating  him.  His 
hatred  and  denunciations  were  pointed  directly  at  them- 
selves, and  all  their  attempts  to  approach  him  had  only 
resulted  in  rendering  Jesus  more  obstinate  and  insulting, 
and  in  making  themselves  more  incensed  at  the 
blasphemy  of  his  religious  and  moral  pretensions  and 
more  hopelessly  alarmed  at  his  political  ones.  It  was 
from  this  point  of  view  that  his  arrest  and  destruction 
was  determined  upon.  They  reasoned  that — "  If  we  let 
him  thus  alone,  all  men  will  believe  on  him ;  and  the 
Romans  shall  come  and  take  away  both  our  place  and 
nation  " — (John  xi.  48)  ;  and  the  High  Priest  declared 
that  it  was  best  to  destroy  him  for  the  sake  of  the  people 
— better  one  man  die  than  ruin  the  nation. 

Thus  the  lowly  agitator,  whom  both  parties  would 
have  otherwise  despised,  became,  as  it  were,  a  prize  or 
battle-ground  over  which  Pilate  and  the  Jewish  rulers 
fought : — the  one  to  save  Jesus  and  sacrifice  the  Jews, 
and  the  other  to  sacrifice  Jesus  and  save  the  Jews. 
The  Jewish  Rulers  had  the  semi-autonomy  of  their  coun- 
try and  "  our  places  "  at  stake  on  the  issue  :  Pilate  had 


THE    MEN    WHO   EXECUTED   JESUS.  485 

• 

his  own  position,  pride  and  political  personal  safety  in- 
volved :  Jesus  had  his  all.  Such  were  the  actors,  con- 
ditions, motives  and  influences  concerned  in  the  trial 
and  execution  of  Jesus. 


486  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE    ARREST. 

THERE  are  scenes  and  incidents  related  in  the 
Gospels  in  connection  with  the  arrest  of  Jesus  on 
that  "  night  of  sorrow  "  in  Gethsemane,  which  bear  so 
directly  upon  the  great  issue  which  we  are  to  determine 
as  to  require  of  us  careful  investigation. 

The  Jewish  officials  had  been  attempting  to  have 
Jesus  arrested  for  some  time  previous  to  his  actual  ar- 
rest, but  Jesus  had  been  agile  and  cunning  enough  to 
elude  them.  He  had  repeatedly  fled  when  menaced 
with  real  danger  of  arrest.  He  knew  that,  during  the 
great  feasts,  they  feared  to  arrest  him  for  fear  of  an 
"  uproar  among  the  people,"  and  that  they  were  seeking 
an  opportunity  to  arrest  him  privately.  To  avoid  this, 
Jesus  had  entered  Judea  secretly  ;  and,  when  at  Jeru- 
salem, he  took  the  precaution  of  sleeping  outside  the 
city  among  his  trusted  followers,  either  at  Bethany  with 
his  disciples  there,  or  on  Mount  Olivet,  in  the  groves 
and  gardens  ;  and  was  thus  enabled  to  continue  to  elude 
his  enemies.  His  places  of  retreat  were  known  only  to 
his  disciples,  and  these  disciples  were  too  numerous  to 
be  overcome  by  a  few  servants  or  civic  officers  of  the 


THE    ARREST.  487 

High  Priest ;  while  to  march  the  armed  Temple  guard, 
in  search  of  them,  would  have  bee'n  useless.  All  diffi- 
culty was  finally  overcome  by  the  treachery  of  one  of  his 
own  followers. 

Nothing  could  more  clearly  show  the  secret  but  re- 
liable connections  which  Jesus  possessed  in  the  Sanhe- 
drim, than  the  early  and  correct  information  he  received 
of  the  purposes  of  the  Jewish  rulers  and  of  their  tamper- 
ing with  Judas.  Nor  can  anything  be  clearer  than  that 
Jesus  contemplated  a  forcible,  and,  if  need  were,  a 
bloody  resistance  to  his  arrest,  if  it  were  attempted 
without  a  Roman  force.  We  find  (Luke  xxii.  35  et 
seq.)  that  his  disciples  had  contemplated  such  a  con- 
tingency, and  had  already  procured  a  few  weapons,  but 
that,  without  knowing  this,  Jesus  had  excitedly  ordered 
them  to  procure  arms  for  defence,  even  if  they  had  to 
sell  their  garments  to  buy  them.  And,  upon  being  in- 
formed that  they  had  two  swords,  he  declared  they 
would  be  sufficient  ;- — meaning,  of  course,  as  against  the 
unarmed  civic  servants  of  the  High  Priest.  And  this 
is  the  reason  we  find  Peter  having  and  using  a  sword 
in  Gethsemane. 

We  now  approach  that  extraordinary  scene  of  an- 
guish and  alarm  in  the  garden,  which  would  seem,  of  all 
his  works  and  acts,  most  unlike  man's,  however  little 
like  a  God's  ;  although  even  the  most  singular  feature  of 
his  affections  there,  was  not  unparalleled  in  a  number  of 
recorded  cases.  As  we  have  said,  this  young  "  King  of 
the  Jews  "  was  as  nervously  apprehensive  and  timorous 
as  he  was  mentally  and  morally  brave.  He  had,  during 
his  stay  at  Jerusalem,  been  constantly  excited  and  con- 


488  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

tinually  on  the  alert  during  the  day,  and  had  passed  his 
nights  in  hiding  and  in  security.  His  trepidation  had 
been  clearly  manifested,  upon  hearing  of  his  intended 
betrayal,  by  his  excited  manner,  and  his  commands  to 
his  disciples  to  prepare  for  fighting.  His  command 
to  them  to  take  both  money  and  arms  with  them, 
spoke  both  of  flight  and  defence  ;  and  the  whole  scene 
told  of  sudden,  confused  and  wild  alarm.  After  he  had 
reached  the  favored-hiding  place,  and  night  and  darkness 
was  around  him,  he  begged  his  disciples  to  keep  watch 
with  him  for  the  approach  of  danger,  and  piteously  up- 
braided them  for  not  keeping  awake  for  merely  that  one 
night.  While  his  disciples  could  not  force  themselves 
to  keep  awake  during  those  midnight  hours,  it  was  im- 
possible for  Jesus  either  to  sleep  or  rest.  He  could  only 
pray — pray  again  and  again,  with  wild  and  passionate 
fervor.  What  to  do,  he  knew  not.  Escape  might  even 
then  be  impossible,  and  its  attempt  might  but  land  him 
in  the  arms  of  his  enemies ;  while,  at  best,  another  flight 
could  but  close  his  career,  not  only  in  failure,  but  in 
ridicule  and  contempt.  To  remain,  with  the  traitor 
Judas  on  his  track,  was  so  imminently  perilous  as  to 
make  him  tremble  at  every  sound  and  rustle  that  was 
borne  in  through  the  darkness.  Between  such  dire  al- 
ternatives his  unstrung  mind  was  incapable  of  decision  ; 
his  excited  nerves  were  beyond  control.  He  was  in  a 
tempest  of  agonizing  doubt,  uncertainty  and  fear,  which 
were  overwhelming  and  almost  suffocating.  Death  and 
Degradation  stared  at  him  from  out  the  darkness.  His 
very  soul  and  his  whole  nature  was  convulsed  with  an 
agony  of  fright.  He  prayed  again  and  again  that  the  bit- 
ter "cup  "  might  pass  from  his  lips — the  cup  which  he  had 


THE    ARREST.  489 

so  dreaded, — the  death  which  he  had  so  often  fled  from. 
The  muffled  tread  of  the  armed  soldiers  was  probably 
borne  fitfully  in  upon  his  exalted  senses,  through  the 
stillness  of  the  night,  while  he  yet  prayed ;  and  his  con- 
vulsed nature  recorded  his  agony  of  doubt  and  dread  in 
great  sweat-like  drops  of  blood  upon  his  livid  face.  This 
was  indeed  a  marvellous  and  appalling  scene — a  scene 
supremely  mortal  and  profoundly  pitiful.  There  have 
been  occasional  instances  of  this  "  bloody  sweat "  in 
like  cases  of  overwhelming  fright  and  terror,  but  they 
have  been  extremely  rare.  Such  agonizing  and  demoral- 
izing fear,  however  humiliating,  is  a  result  of  organiza- 
tion or  of  organic  derangement,  and  is  a  subject  for  pity 
only. 


By  a  reaction  almost  as  peculiar  to  Jesus  as  this  sud- 
den terror  or  "blood-sweat,"  we  find  him,  within  a  few 
minutes  of  his  extremest  fright  and  agony,  and  while  the 
soldiers  were  known  to  be  at  hand  and  the  dreaded  arrest 
had  become  a  certainty,  speaking  and  acting  with  the 
coolness  and  considerateness  of  a  philosopher  and  the 
sudden  confidence  of  renewed  hope.  There  was  a  mar- 
vellous and  almost  instant  revulsion  from  fright  and 
despair  to  confidence  and  hope.  By  whom,  and  by  what 
means,  was  that  change  effected,  and  the  mortal  terror 
of  that  "  cup  "  dissipated  ? 


JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

With  the  general  course  of  events  upon  that  memor- 
able night  we  wish  to  concern  ourselves  only  so  far  as 
they  are  explanatory  of  certain  facts  which  bear  upon 
our  main  issue.  There  are  four  facts  mentioned  in  the 
history  of  that  night,  which  have  special  significance  in 
connection  with  our  interpretation  or  theory  of  facts 
concerning  the  crucifixion  and  resurrection  of  Jesus  : — 
facts  which  find  in  that  theory  natural  and  rational 
causes  and  explanations,  but  which  can  find  them  in  no 
other.  As  these  facts  stand  recorded  in  the  Gospels  and 
in  our  Christian  beliefs,  they  are  alien,  unappropriated, 
mysterious  and  adverse  facts ;  while,  upon  our  theory  or 
hypothesis,  they  are  susceptible  of  a  rational  and  natural 
connection  with  each  other,  as  well  as  with  all  the  other 
facts,  and  directly  suggest,  and  point  to,  such  connections 
and  to  their  consistency  with  the  characters,  motives 
and  conditions  concerned.  They  are  not  only  consistent 
with  our  conception  of  the  facts,  but  highly  and  espe- 
cially explanatory  of  facts  which  are  otherwise  un ex- 
plainable. 

The  incidents  or  facts  which  we  refer  to,  are, — first : 
the  demoralization  and  terror  of  Jesus.  .Second  :  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  supposed  angel.  Third:  the  sudden 
change  and  "comfort"  this  angel's  message  to  Jesus 
effected.  Fourth  :  the  seizure  of  some  unknown  youth, 
by  one  of  the  guard,  who  was  following  Jesus  as  they 
were  departing  from  Gethsemane  and  before  they 
had  entered  the  wall  of  the  city,  and  who,  without 
speaking  a  word,  tore  away  from  them,  leaving  his 
only  rag  of  covering  in  their  hands,  and  fled  away, 
'*  naked,"  into  the  darkness.  We  will  suspend  the  con- 


THE    ARREST.  49! 

sideration  of  these  facts  for  the  purpose  of  making  a 
few  suggestions  as  to  the  value  of  such  evidence  and  as 
to  the  proper  mode  of  determining  the  true  nature  of 
the  transactions  we  are  to  examine,  and  also  for  the  pur- 
pose of  briefly  stating  our  own  conception  or  theory  of 
the  matter ;  in  order  that  the  Reader  may  more  cor- 
rectly estimate  the  value  of  the  evidence  to  be  referred 
to  and  relied  upon,  and  to  perceive  its  relation  to  our 
special  theory  as  to  the  facts,  as  we  introduce  them. 


The  course  of  human  thoughts  and  actions,  like  the 
movements  of  unconscious  nature,  necessarily  have  some 
coherence,  consistency  and  order  of  consecution,  how- 
ever hidden  and  incomprehensible  the  links  or  connec- 
tions in  the  chain  of  causation  may  be.  Men's  course 
of  conduct  may  be  inconsistent  with  our  notions  and 
motives,  in  many  ways,  but  they  never  can  be  incon- 
sistent with  those  of  the  actors.  Even  the  acts  of  a 
lunatic  are  consistent  with  lunacy.  Whatsoever  has 
happened  must  have  happened  in  the  way  it  did,  since 
the  very  fact  of  its  so  happening  is  proof  that  all  the 
conditions,  causes  and  influences  which  would  necessa- 
rily have  produced  the  actual  results,  were  brought  to 
bear  upon  them  in  the  mode  requisite  to  produce  them. 
Our  investigations  of  the  hidden  or  obscure  acts  of 
others  are  wholly  dependent  upon  this  correlation  be- 
tween causes  and  effects,  motives  and  actions — upon  the 
coherences,  consistencies  and  congruities  in  Nature. 
Knowing  motives,  we  infer,  or  .interpret,  conduct. 


492  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

Knowing  conduct,  we  infer   or  interpret   motives  and 
language.     The  process  of  investigating  human  conduct 
and  motives  is   one  of  inference  and  construction.     In 
the  absence  of  a  knowledge  of  the  actual  facts  we  infer 
them  from  the  known  character  and  general   situation 
and  purposes  of  the  actors,  and  the  conditions,  induce- 
ments  and  influences  tinder  which  they  acted.     In  the 
absence  of  a  knowledge  of  the  individual  and  his  pur- 
poses, we  are  compelled  to  interpret  his  motives  by  his 
conduct  and  by  the  standard  common  to  humanity,  when 
acting  under  such  circumstances.     When  we  know  the 
character,  motives  and  purposes  of  the  actors,  we  must 
expect  them  to  act  in  pursuance  of  them,  and  must  con- 
strue their  actions  and  language  by,  and  in  conformity 
with    them.      We  can  neither   investigate   nature,  nor 
human  actions,  without  some  theory  of  them.     When  we 
would  reproduce  or  reconstruct  and  explain  some  past 
human  transaction  from  partial,  obscure  or  fragmentary 
facts,  we  are  compelled   to  provisionally  assume  some 
theory  or  hypothesis  as  to  the  true  character  of  it — (the 
one  deemed  most  plausible,)  and  then  test  its  conformity 
with  the  known  facts  and  its  capacity  for  rationally  ap- 
propriating and  explaining  them  ;  and  thus  continue  to 
try  and  test- various  hypotheses  or  supposititious  states 
of  fact  until  one  is  found  that  completely  fits  and  explains 
the  entire  evidence  or  known  facts. 

Manifestly,  the  value  of  the  several  known  facts  in 
pointing  out  the  unknown  ones  will  be  exactly  com- 
mensurate with  their  singularity.  A  large  portion  of 
the  facts,  in  most  cases,  can  be  made  to  exhibit  a  real  or 
apparent  conformity  with  almost  any  plausible  theory. 


•  THE    ARREST.  493 

They  are  not  sufficiently  characteristic  and  exclusive  to 
be  significant.  There  are  other  classes  of  facts  which 
have  a  far  greater  indicative  capacity,  on  account  of 
their  rarity  or  peculiarity.  Where  these  are  found  in 
the  evidence,  they  constitute  a  kind  of  crucial  test,  as  it 
were;  and  any  theory  which  can  appropriate  and  ex- 
plain them  in  connection  and  consistency  with  all  the 
other  facts,  is  entitled  to  belief ;  while  those  that  fail  to 
do  so  are  fatally  defective.  Facts  are  often  disclosed  by 
the  evidence  which  are  not  only  rare  or  singular,  but 
are  even  wholly  exceptional ;  and  such  facts  constitute, 
of  themselves,  a  test  of  the  whole  hypothesis.  It  is, 
often,  just  such  seemingly  insignificant,  and,  as  it  were, 
idiosyncratic  waifs  which  stray  loose  among  the  facts,  or 
cling  to  odd  angles  of  the  evidence,  that  are  the  readiest 
and  surest  guides  to  the  true  theory  of  the  facts  and  the 
surest  tests  and  proofs  of  its  correctness  when  it  is 
found.  Human  mysteries,  like  human  bodies,  are  most 
readily  identified  or  exposed  by  their  warts,  moles  and 
deformities.  A  true  hypothesis  will  explain  and  appro- 
priate all  such  facts,  readily  and  naturally  ;  while  it  is- 
the  only  one  which  will, — especially  where  there  are  sev- 
eral of  such  crucial  facts.  The  magnitude  of  such  facts 
does  not  determine  their  importance :  it  is  their  singu- 
larity. The  facts  which  we  have  already  referred  to,  as 
well  as  others  which  will  accumulate  as  we  advance, 
possess  more  or  less  of  this  character  of  singularity  and 
exclusiveness,  and  point  with  wonderful  directness  to 
our  solution  or  rendering  of  the  conduct  and  fate  of  Jesus. 


494  JESUS    AND    RELIGION.  f 

The  theory  by  which  we  purpose  to  explain  the  facts 
and  solve  the  mystery  of  the  closing  scenes  in  the  re- 
corded career  of  Jesus,  is  simply  'this, — namely  :  that 
Jesus  did  not  die  on  the  cross  ;  but  that,  when  supposed 
to  be  dead,  simply  because  he  was  crucified  and  pro- 
nounced dead,  he  was  in  fact  living ;  although  in  a  con- 
dition resembling  death.  And  it  will  be  contended,  that 
his  entire  treatment  and  punishment  tended  and  was 
calculated  to  produce  that  result  and  not  death  ;  and 
that  those  who  had  control  of  him  and  his  punishment, 
not  only  contemplated,  but  connived  at  and  aided  the  re- 
sult indicated  :  this  latter  fact,  however,  being  unneces- 
sary to  the  truth  of  our  theory. 

If  the  .entire  facts,  from  beginning  to  end,  can  be 
shown  to  be  in  conformity  with  this  view,  we  shall  have 
reduced  the  whole  transaction  to  a  basis  which  is  at 
once  rational  and  comprehensible,  and  shall  have  solved 
the  one  mystery  which  has  been  the  very  mother  of 
mysteries.  And  we  undertake  to  say,  that  the  entire 
real  facts  can,  not  only  be  fully  accounted  for  upon  this 
supposition,  but  can  be  so  accounted  for  upon  no  other 
theory  with  even  a  show  of  reason  and  consistency. 
Nay,  more,  I  affirm  with  confidence  that  few  conclusions 
can  be  rendered  more  conclusive  either  from  fact  or 
reason  ;  and  that,  if  the  Gospel  accounts  of  the  reappear- 
ance of  Jesus  after  his  crucifixion  is  to  be  credited,  the 
conclusion  is  absolutely  resistless.  Let  no  reader  fail  to 
give  the  matter  a  fair  and  candid  examination  on  ac- 
count of  its  novelty  or  of  its  conflict  with  all  their  pre- 
conceived notions,  but  rather  give  it  the  more  earnest 
and  hopeful  investigation  ;  seeing  that  whatever  theory 


THE    ARREST.  495 

can  solve  the  supposed  mystery,  must  be  novel ; — all  old 
ones  having  ended  only  in  irrationalities  and  inanities. 
Only  consent  to  give  the  facts  and  reasons  the  same 
weight  which  you  would  were  they  applicable  to  any 
other  mortal  that  ever  lived,  instead  of  Jesus,  and  the 
difficulties  and  mysteries  alike  vanish. 


From  this  episode,  Let  us  return  to  the  four  facts  on 
the  night  of  the  arrest,  already  noted.  And  first,  to  that 
of  the  agonizing  fright  and  blood-sweating  of  Jesus. 
These  phenomena,  together  with  the  wild  desire  and 
passionate  prayer  of  the  victim  of  them  for  his  escape 
from  the  suffering  and  death  which  menaced  him,  would 
seem  wholly  conclusive  of  the  fallacy  of  the  pretensions 
to  Divinity  and  voluntary  self-sacrifice  now  claimed  for 
this  frightened  and  suppliant  sufferer;  and,  if  so,  are 
equally  conclusive  of  the  mistake  as  to  his  resurrection. 
The  resurrection  has  been  considered  the  essential  and 
conclusive  proof  of  his  divinity,  and  had  he  not  been 
supposed  to  have  resurrected  by  his  own  divine  power, 
no  thought  of  his  resurrection  from  real  death  would 
have  been  entertained.  It  was  deemed  at  once  a  result 
and  a  proof  of  his  divine  nature  and  power.  Both  Chris- 
tianity and  Jesus  stand  irrevocably  committed  to  the 
fact  that  Jesus  voluntarily  suffered  and  voluntarily  "  rose 
from  the  dead."  Jesus  is  represented  as  using  language 
which  puts  the  matter  beyond  question.  In  the  Gos- 
pel of  John  (x.  17,  1 8)  he  says — "Therefore  doth  my 
Father  love  me,  because  I  lay  down  my  life  that  I 


496  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

might  take  it  again.  No  man  taketh  it  from  me,  but  I 
lay  it  down  myself.  I  have  power  to  lay  it  down,  and  I 
have  power  to  take  it  again."  No  declaration  could  be 
more  complete  or  more  explicit.  It  forbids  either  con- 
struction or  evasion.  And  yet,  How  stands  the  case 
when  we  look  upon  that  ghastly  scene  of  terror  and  sup- 
plication in  Gethsemane  ?  Was  this  terror-stricken  and 
hiding  man,  who  was  sweating  very  blood  at  the  thought 
of  his  being  lawfully  arrested  for  his  conduct  and  at  the 
anticipation  of  the  death  that  menaced  him,  and  was 
praying  his  followers  to  help  him  watch  and  avoid  the 
danger,  and  praying  God  that  this  fearful  "  cup  "  which 
was  being  pressed  to  his  lips,  might  pass  from  him — Was 
this  man,  we  say,  a  God  ?  Was  he  even  a  man  ^villingly 
offering  up  his  life — that  life  which  he  had  so  often  fled  to 
save,  and  which  he  now  hid,  and  watched  and  prayed  to 
save,  and  sweat  blood  at  the  bare  thought  of  losing  ? 
Were  these  either  proofs  of  his  Godhood,  of  his  King- 
hood,  or  of  his  Manhood  ?  ^Were  they  even  evidence  of 
his  descent  from  that  lion-hearted  lad  who  confronted 
Goliath  with  his  shepherd-sling  ?  These  facts  were  too 
naked  and  palpable  to  permit  of  rational  evasion.  They 
are  only  avoidable  by  that  blind  superstition  which  will 
accept  any  pretence, — however  absurd,  and  any  quib- 
bling,— however  gross,  in  defence  of  J-esus  ;  and  that  is 
utterly  impervious  to  both  fact  and  reason  when  his  pre- 
tensions are  questioned.  The  mental  and  physical  con- 
dition of  J'esus  on  that  night  will  also  furnish  the  most, 
if  not  the  only,  rational  explanation  of  the  blood  and 
water  which  is  said  to  have  flowed  from  his  side  on  the 
next  day ;  if,  indeed,  that  allegation  be  not  purely  mythic, 
as  we  believe  it  to  be.  .1-  •• 


THE    ARREST.  497 

We  have  next  to  consider  the  fact  that  some  person 
who  was  robed  in  white  (since  he  w^.s  seen  by  the  dis- 
ciples at  the  distance  of  a  "  stone's  throw,"  at  night,  and 
was  supposed  by  them  to  be  an  angel  ;  which,  of  neces- 
sity, must  have  been  in  white)  came  to  Jesus  just  im- 
mediately before  the  arrival  of  the  Roman  guard  and 
when  Jesus  was  in  the  very  height  of  his  agonizing 
doubt  and  terror.  What  communication  this  person 
made  to  Jesus  we  are  not  informed,  but  we  are  told  that 
the  purpose  of  the  visit  was  to  "  comfort "  him  :  and 
we  find  that  his  conduct  confirms  this  statement,  and 
gave  striking  proof  of  the  success  of  this  mission  of 
comforting.  For  we  find  him  immediately  returning  to 
his  disciples,  and  informing  them,  in  the  most  self- 
possessed  manner,  that  the  watch  which  he  had  so 
anxiously  besought  them  to  keep  was  no  longer  needful, 
and  that  Judas  and  his  backers  were  already  at  hand. 

If  we  assume  the  unknown  persons  in  £.  human 
drama  to  be  supernatural  beings  in  human  form,  and 
account  for  all  uncomprehended  facts  and  actions  by 
supernatural  agencies,  and  thus  place  ourselves  outside 
of  reason  and  natural  law,  we  may  irrationally  account 
for  any  possible  state  of  things  upon  any  and  every  pos- 
sible hypothesis,  and  can  call  it  an  explanation  ;  but,  by 
no  rational  method  can  we  account  for  this  midnight 
visit  of  comfort  or  its  marvellous  success,  or  for  the  real 
need  of  such  comfort  by  Jesus,  from  the  orthodox  stand- 
point. Nor  can  any  mortal  conceive  why  an  angel 
should  have  to  be  sent  with  a  message  of  any  kind  to  an 
Incarnate  God,  or  what  any  angel  could  tell  him  about 
his  own  affairs — about  affairs  which  he  himself  had  pre- 
32 


498  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

determined  "before  the  World  was,"  and  was  now  going 
through  with  according  to  his  predetermination.  Nor 
can  any  grounds  of  comfort  or  the  need  of  them,  in  such 
a  case,  enter  into  the  understanding  of  man  ;  since  he 
was  not  only  going  through  with  exactly  what  he  de- 
sired and  had  determined  to  go  through,  and  tmtst  go 
through,  upon  the  orthodox  view  of  the  matter,  but  he 
was  certainly  informed  that  the  very  arrest  which  he 
dreaded,  and  from  which  he  was  hiding,  was  certainly 
and  immediately  to  take  place,  and  he  was  actually  tried, 
condemned  and  crucified.  Not  a  single  pang,  therefore, 
which  he  had  dreaded,  could  be  avoided  or  was  in  fact 
avoided,  but  all  took  place  as  he  had  pre-known  and  de- 
sired it  should.  What  then  was,  or  could  have  been, 
the  message  of  comfort  conveyed  by  that  angel,  which 
so  suddenly  calmed  and  re-inspired  the  despairing  and 
frightened  Jesus  ?  Is  not  the  whole  scene  an  inexplic- 
able mystery  and  absurd  contradiction,  upon  the  Chris- 
tian theory  ?  It  will  not  answer  to  say  that  all  this 
applied  to  the  mere  man  Jesus.  For  the  Gospels  neither 
intimate,  nor  countenance  such  a  distinction  ;  nor  is 
such  a  distinction  consistent  with  the  assumed  nature 
and  mission  of  Jesus.  The  two  natures,  if  there  were 
two,  were  inseparably  united,  and  the  efficient  suffering 
and  sacrifice  which  was  to  atone  for  man's  sins,  was  not 
the  death,  of  the  young  carpenter  of  Galilee  in  his  human 
capacity,  but  the  suffering  and  death  of  the  incarnate 
Son  of  God  who  voluntarily  gave  himself  to  surfer  and 
die  as  an  atonement  for  the  sins  of  humanity.  It  was 
divine  suffering  that  paid  the  penalty.  Nor  is  it  inti- 
mated in  the  scriptures  that  the  Jesus  who  suffered  in 
the  garden  was  then  any  different,  or  any  differently 


THE   ARREST.  499 

related  to  God  or  the  Divine  Son,  from  what  he  was 
at  all  times. 

Who,  then,  was  this  midnight  white-robed  visitor  and 
comforter  ?  and  What  was  the  nature  of  his  message  ? 
The  message  must  have  concerned  the  subject  about 
which  Jesus  himself  was  so  concerned  and  alarmed,  and 
must  have  been  of  a  nature  to  relieve  his  fears  and  re- 
inspire  him  with  hope  on  that  subject,  since  this  was 
the  antidote  or  comfort  he  required  to  allay  his  peculiar 
sufferings  ;  and  the  result  proved  the  fact  of  an  actual 
application  of  an  antidote  to  his  excessive  fear.  From 
whence,  then,  could  come  such  a  message  of  encourage- 
ment and  hope  in  regard  to  his  dreaded  trial  ?  Is  it  not 
manifest  that  this  was  a  messenger  sent  by  his  confiden- 
tial friends,  or  secret  coadjutors  behind  the  scenes,  who 
had  already  notified  him  of  the  secret  tampering  with 
Judas  ?  With  such  active  friends  as  we  know  him  to  have 
possessed  in  the  very  council  of  his  enemies,  it  is  hardly 
credible  that  they  would  have  failed  to  have  consulted 
with  him  and  arranged  to  notify  him  of  the  move- 
ments against  him.  And  it  is  not  improbable  that 
the  fear  of  their  abandoning  him  in  the  hour  of  his  dan- 
ger and  trial  had  added  to  his  apprehension  and  alarm. 
The  occurrence,  then,  was  not  only  a  reasonable  and 
natural  one,  but  a  presumable  one.  The  Roman  author- 
ities could  not  have  been  ignorant  of  the  public  preten- 
sions and  movements  of  Jesus  and  of  the  troubles  of  the 
Jews  concerning  him,  nor  is  it  probable  that  the  leading 
secret  coadjutors  of  Jesus  would  fail  to  ascertain  the 
views  of  Pilate  in  regard  to  him,  as  soon  as  the  betrayal 
of  Jesus  rendered  his  arrest  probable.  When  the  pro- 


5OO  JESUS   AND   RELIGION'. 

gramme  of  the  arrest,  therefore,  was  agreed  upon  in  the 
council  that  night,  it  is  presumable,  and  in  the  natural 
course  of  events,  that  his  secret  and  powerful  coadjutors 
in  the  Sanhedrim,  who  were  apprised  of  the  decision 
and  arrangements,  would  at  once  despatch  a  messenger 
to  inform  Jesus  both  of  the  coming  of  the  Roman  guard 
and  of  their  own  continued  fidelity  to  him,  as  well  as  of 
the  determination  to  bring  him  before  Pilate  for  trial, 
and  of  Pilate's  inclination  to  defend  and  acquit  him  :  so 
that  Jesus  might  not  be  driven  to  despair,  if  escape  were 
impossible.  These  assurances  were  sent,  doubtlessly, 
by  a  son  or  confidential  servant  of  the  sender  ;  and, 
were  he  discovered,  it  would  expose  the  complicity  of 
this  secret  coadjutor  with  the  movements  of  Jesus  and 
bring  him  into  discredit,  trouble  and  danger.  The  course 
to  be  finally  pursued  was  probably  not  agreed  upon  by 
the  Jewish  rulers  until  after  midnight,  and  the  move- 
ments were  probably  so  unexpectedly  prompt,  that  the 
messenger,  when  suddenly  aroused  from  sleep  and  dis- 
patched with  his  message,  was  instructed  to  fly  with 
speed  and  without  preparation,  or  he  would  be  followed 
almost  immediately  by  the  guard  of  arrest.  All  this, 
and  still  more  that  we  shall  yet  notice,  is  highly  probable 
under  the  circumstances  and  the  relations  of  the  parties, 
and  at  once  explains  the  visit  of  the  white-robed  angel, 
as  well  as  the  general  nature  of  his  message  and  the 
reason  that  it  so  suddenly  allayed  the  extreme  terror  of 
Jesus  and  reinspired  him  with  hope.  It  was  a  human 
comforter  bearing  tidings  of  human  help  and  hope. 


THE    ARREST.  5OI 

The  remaining  fact  referred  to,  is  still  more  singular 
and  significant.  So  strange  did  it  seem,  that  it  continued 
to  be  remembered  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  or  more, 
and  forced  its  way  into  the  Gospels ;  although  no  at- 
tempt is  made  to  explain  it  or  to  connect  it  with  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  night,  in  any  way.  It  appears  that,  after 
the  messenger  had  delivered~his  message  to  Jesus  and 
doubtlessly  informed  him  of  the  immediate  approach  of 
the  guard,  Jesus  immediately  went  and  informed  his  dis- 
ciples of  the  approach  of  the  guard,  and  was  then  im- 
mediately arrested  ;  and,  in  a  few  moments,  was  on  his 
way  to  the  city,  in  their  custody.  After  all  his  disciples 
had  fled  or  left  him,  and  when  Jesus  and  his  guard  had 
left  the  garden  and  were  on  their  way  to  the  city,  we  are 
told  by  Mark,  that  "  there  folio  wed  him  (Jesus)  a  certain 
young  man,  having  a  linen  clotk  about  his  naked  body, 
and  the  young  men  laid  hold  on  him  :  and  he  left  the 
linen  cloth  and  fled  from  them  naked''  As  it  stands, 
this  singular  fact  would  seem  to  have  no  significance, 
and,  upon  the  orthodox  theory,  can  have  none.  And  yet, 
it  was  so  singular  and  so  evidently  connected  with  Jesus 
and  his  arrest,  that  it  has  floated  down  to  us  side  by  side 
with  the  crucifixion  and  the  bloody  sweat.  Were  not 
the  disciples  right  ?  Was  it  not  a  fact  to  be  noted,  even  if 
inexplicable,  that  this  lone  young  man — a  stranger  to  the 
followers  of  Jesus — should  be  found  following  Jesus  just 
after  he  had  left  his  secret  retreat,  between  midnight 
and  day,  with  no  clothing  but  a  "  linen  cloth  ?  "  Was  it 
not  still  more  singular  and  significant  that,  when  he  was 
discovered  and  seized,  he  never  protested,  never  ex- 
plained, nor  opened  his  lips,  but  tore  away  from  them, 
leaving  his  sole  covering  in  their  hands,  and  fled  voice- 


5O2  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

less  ana  stark-naked  into  the  night — a  night,  too,  which 
was  so  cold  that  they  had  to  have  2ifire  inside  the  house 
of  the  High  Priest  even  for  the  servants  ?  How  came 
this  young  man,  whom  none  of  the  disciples  knew,  to  be 
thus  following  Jesus  from  his  secret'  hiding  place  to  the 
city,  when  his  own  followers  had  left  him  ?  How  came  he 
to  be  following  Jesus  from  that  garden,  unless  he  had  been 
with  him  in  the  garden,  visiting  him  about  that  very  ar- 
rest ?  Why  such  terror  at  the  prospect  of  being  discov- 
ered and  identified  by  those  men  of  the  Temple  Party  ? 
Why  in  such  a  hasty  covering  on  so  cold  a  night  ?  Must 
there  not  have  been  both  a  powerful  motive  and  a  sudden 
emergency  to  have  brought  him  there  at  such  a  time, 
in  such  weather,  and  in  such  a  garb, — a  powerful  motive 
also  to  tempt  him  to  abandon  even  that  single  covering 
in  such  weather  and  at  such  a  time  and  place  ? 

The  motive  of  his  being  there  can  scarcely  be  con- 
ceived to  be  other  than  to  serve  Jesus  in  some  form,  and 
even  in  some  form  connected  with  that  night's  proceed- 
ings. He  was  not  a  disciple  of  Jesus,  nor  known  to  his 
followers.  He  did  not  belong  to  the  party  of  arrest. 
The  place,  time,  his  following  Jesus  and  his  fear  of  dis- 
covery, all  manifestly  tend  to  show,  that  he  was  there  on 
account  of  Jesus.  His  motive  for  so  dreading  exposure 
is  quite  clear,  upon  our  supposition  as  to  him  and  his 
purpose.  He  knew  that,  if  he  was  detained,  he  would 
be  known  by  the  men  who  seized  hint,  and  that  his  recog- 
nition would  expose  his  purpose,  and  subject  those  who 
sent  him  to  the  charge  of  treachery  to  the  Sanhedrim 
and  of  complicity  with  Jesus  in  his  treasonable  schemes. 
Hence  he  risked  all,  rather  than  be  discovered.  The 


THE    ARREST.  503 

whole  facts  clearly  show  that  this  young  man  was  return- 
ing from  the  hiding  place  of  Jesus  to  the  city,  and  that 
he  had  been  connected  with  the  night's  work,  in  some 
secret  and  dangerous  way,  in  favor  of  Jesus.  And  yet 
the  object  and  motive  of  that  connection  was  unknown 
to  the  disciples,  and  is  wholly  inconceivable  to  us  upon 
the  orthodox  theory.  It  is  a  fact  for  which  that  theory 
finds  no  place  or  explanation.  On  the  other  hand  our 
theory  anticipates  such  a  movement  and  hails  it  as  one 
of  its  proofs.  Before  we  have  reached  this  mysterious 
occurrence  other  mysterious  facts  had  prepared  us  for 
an  explanation  of  this  one  ;  and  this,  in  its  turn,  throws 
back  its  explanatory  light  upon  the  former  one.  They 
are  parts  of  the  same  transaction.  It  becomes  manifest 
that  the  same  "angel"  who  brought  the  comforting 
message  to  Jesus  in  the  garden,  had  secretly  witnessed 
his  arrest  and  cautiously  followed  him  and  the  guard  as 
they  passed  out  of  the  garden  and  proceeded  to  the  city, 
whither  he  himself  also  proposed  to  return,  still  wrapped 
in  his  ghostly  sheet  or  linen  cloth.  But  when  they  had 
gotten  out  of  the  darker  garden  into  the  more  open 
ground,  he  was  discovered  and,  being  under  such  sus- 
picious circumstances,  was  suspicioned  and  seized. 
Rather  than  be  identified  he  left  his  only  covering  in 
their  hands  and  fled,  naked.  Had  he  been  a  stranger  to 
the  parties  who  arrested  him,  or  had  he  been  innocent 
of  any  connection  with  their  movements  or  designs,  and 
had  been  following  them  from  idle  curiosity  or  accident, 
he  could  have  had  no  cause  for  fearing  those  men  or  for 
fearing  to  be  recognized  by  them  ;  and  he  certainly 
would  not  have  abandoned  his  covering  and  exposed 
himself,  on  such  a  night  and  in  such  a  place,  in  the 


504  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

manner  he  did,  rather  than  speak  a  word  of  explanation. 
That  he  should  have  been  in  such  a  peculiar  undress, 
even,  is  readily  explicable  upon  our  supposition  ;  while 
it  would  be  difficult  to  suggest  any  pretence  of  a  reason 
for  it  on  any  other.  The  uncertainty  as  to  the  course 
and  the  time  of  action  of  the  enemies  of  Jesus,  the  late- 
ness of  the  hour  at  night  when  immediate  action  was 
actually  determined  upon,  the  promptness  of  the  action, 
etc.,  rendered  it  necessary  to  arouse  a  messenger  from 
sleep  to  send  to  Jesus,  and  in  such  haste  as  to  allow  him 
only  time  to  throw  his  sddin  or  linen  cloth,  under  which 
he  slept,  around  him.  For  the  people  of  Palestine, 
neither  then,  nor,  I  believe,  now,  clothed  themselves  on 
going  to  bed  in  night  clothing,  as  we  do ;  but  completely 
undressed,  and  then  threw  their  sadin — a  kind  of  "  wrap- 
per of  fine  linen  " — around  them.  That  a  person  aroused 
from  sleep  to  be  sent  on  an  instant  message  of  life  and 
death,  should  have  thrown  this  linen  wrapper  around 
him  and  departed  without  other  clothing,  is  very  natural 
and  probable,  or,  at  least,  quite  comprehensible  and 
credible.  It  is  also  probable,  that  the  messenger  was 
compelled  to  rely  upon  the  opening  of  the  city  gates  for 
the  guard,  for  his  own  opportunity  of  getting  out  of,  and 
returning  to,  the  city  at  that  late  hour  of  the  night ;  and 
if  so,  we  will  have,  in  that  fact,  an  additional  explanation 
of  the  hurry  of  the  messenger  and  also  of  his  following 
the  guard  so  closely  on  its  return. 

Thus  we  see  that,  by  eliminating  the  supernatural 
element  from  these  mysterious  transactions,  they  all 
point  to  a  probable  solution  or  state  of  facts  which, 
when  assumed,  corresponds  with  the  whole  facts  and 


THE   ARREST.  505 

situation,  as  well  as  with  the  characters,  objects  and 
relations  of  the  parties  concerned ;  and  connects  them 
in  a  single  transaction,  which  was  at  once  rational  and 
almost  predictable,  and  which  conforms  to,  and  explains 
the  general  situation  and  transactions  of  the  night,  and 
leaves  no  fact  unappropriated  or  shrouded  in  mystery. 
Can  the  Christian  theory  do  this  ?  or  any  other  theory  ? 
Or,  Could  Christians  agree  upon  any  one  theory  of  the 
facts,  among  themselves  ? 

We  must  be  pardoned  for  the  pains  we  have  taken 
to  insure  a  correct  conception  of  the  facts  of  this 
momentous  night.  They  are  the  prologue  to  the  more 
momentous  drama  of  the  following  day,  and  tend  to 
point  out  the  roles  and  cues  (almost)  of  the  actors  in  that 
drama,  and  the  secret  scenes  which  followed  it.  In 
entering  upon  the  trial  of  Jesus  we  shall  be  prepared,  if 
our  solution  is  the  right  one,  to  expect  other  evidences 
of  the  relations,  purposes  and  intentions  which  these 
singular  facts  have  suggested  and  evidenced,  and  must 
take  care  to  note  their  occurrence,  progress  and  results. 


506  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE    TRIAL. 

THE  first  examination  of  Jesus  occurred  before  the 
Jewish  authorities  very  early  on  the  morning  after  his 
arrest.  Upon  his  own  confession  the  Sanhedrim  "  con- 
demned him  to  be  guilty  of  death "  for  the  crime  of 
blasphemy.  But  the  ecclesiastical  tribunal  had  no  power 
to  order  an  execution  of  the  death-penalty,  nor  could  they 
try  him  upon  the  principal  charge  of  sedition  or  treason. 
For  these  purposes  it  was  necessary  to  send  him  to  the 
Roman  or  civic  power.  This  they  accordingly  did,  and 
went  before  Pilate,  in  a  body,  to  make  their  accusation 
against  Jesus  and  demand  his  conviction  and  execution. 
So  rude  were  the  methods  of  government  then  existing, 
that  there  were  neither  sworn  witnesses,  nor  written  ac- 
cusation, nor  any  record  of  proceedings  and  judgment 
even  in  this  capital  case,  but  the  prisoner  was  arraigned, 
tried  and  convicted  after  the  manner  of  an  American 
mob  or  Vigilance  Committee  : — Pilate  acting  in  all  the 
parts  of  judge,  counsel,  governor,  military  commander 
and  high  sheriff. 


THE    TRIAL.  507 

Before  Pilate  we  find  a  judicial  trial,  in  many  re- 
spects, without  a  parallel.  We  find  the  Jews  hounding- 
on  the  Roman  procurator  to  destroy  one  of  their  own 
people  for  attempting  to  overthrow  the  Roman  power 
in  Judea,  and  set  up  a  Jewish  one ;  while  we  find 
the  Roman  procurator  exercising  his  utmost  sagacity 
and  cunning  to  save  this  avowed  and  openly  proclaimed 
"  King  of  the  Jews "  from  the  penalties  of  treason 
against  his  own  government.  The  secret  of  this 
anomalous  state  of  affairs  we  have  already  considered. 
Besides  these  considerations,  however,  it  is  clear,  that 
both  Pilate  and  Herod  considered  Jesus  too  insignificant 
to  be  looked  upon  in  the  light  of  a  political  competitor, 
or  to  be  regarded  as  in  any  way  dangerous  to  their 
power.  Herod,  evidently,  was  aware  that  he  was  re- 
garded as  "  possessed  "  or  insane,  and  supposed  him  to 
be  a  magician  ;  and  was  desirous,  indeed,  of  witness- 
ing some  of  his  performances.  Pilate  would  seem  to 
have  regarded  him  as  a  singular,  but  by  no  means 
dangerous  or  bad  man  :  and  became  even  superstitiously 
excited  in  his  behalf  when  he  heard  of  his  wife's  dreams 
about  him,  and  of  his  claim  to  be  a  Son  of  God. 


The  "judgment  seat"  of  Pilate  was  on  the  pave- 
ment outside  the  body  or  walls  of  his  palace.  The 
Jewish  accusers  of  Jesus  neither  went,  nor  had  the 
strict  right  to  go,  within  the  palace  itself ;  and  we*  are 
expressly  told,  that  they  did  not  enter  it  upon  this 
occasion,  lest  their  entrance  into  this  Gentile  palace 


508  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

might  so  defile  them  as  to  unfit  them  for  partaking 
of  the  approaching  feast  of  the  Passover.  The  ex- 
aminations of  Jesus  and  the  consultations  with  him  were 
within  the  palace  and  beyond  the  observation  and  hear- 
ing of  all  save  its  Roman  inmates  and  such  as  Pilate 
chose  to  admit  or  invite.  Whatever  personal  punish- 
ments or  indignities  Jesus  may  have  received,  also 
occurred  in  the  palace.  Whatsoever  was  known  or 
reported  outside  of  the  palace  with  regard  to  what 
occurred  within  it,  was  reported  as  Pilate  desired  it,  and 
in  the  way  he  desired  it.  The  accusation,  confession, 
pleading,  controversies  and  judgment  were  public,  but 
the  entire  intercourse  of  Pilate  with  Jesus  and  the  pre- 
tended scourging  and  indignities  which  are  alleged  to 
have  occurred,  were  in  private.  Of  these  private  scenes 
we  have,  in  the  main,  what  Pilate  was  desirous  or  willing 
to  be  known,  and  in  the  form  in  which  he  desired  them  to 
be  believed. 

It  would  appear,  by  John's  account,  that,  when 
the  prisoner  was  brought  for  the  purpose  of  trial  and 
condemnation,  Pilate  came  out  unto  them,  and  said  : 
"  What  accusation  bring  you  against  this  man  ? "  and 
that  the  Jews,  thinking  their  own  examination  ought  to 
have  been  sufficient,  replied  that,  if  he  had  not  been 
a  malefactor,  they  would  not  have  brought  him  before 
Pilate.  The  Procurator  then  told  them  to  take  him  and 
try  and  punish  him  according  to  their  own  laws,  but  they 
declined,  as  Pilate  expected  they  would,  on  account  of 
their  want  of  power  to  "  put  any  man  to  death."  Then 
"  Pilate  entered  into  the  judgment  hall  again  and  called 
Jesus  unto  him."  That  is,  he  came  out  and  heard  the 


THE   TRIAL.  509 

Jews,  and  then  returned  into  his  palace  and  sent  for 
Jesus.  Thus  we  find  him  alternately  coming  out  and 
talking  with  the  accusers,  and  again  returning  into  the 
palace  to  talk  with  Jesus  and  those  inside,  throughout 
the  whole  proceeding. 


The  Jews  laid  many  things  to  his  charge,  among 
others,  that  he  was  a  blasphemer  ;  that  he  perverted  the 
nation;  refused  to  pay  tribute  to  Caesar;  and  pro- 
claimed himself  "  Christ  a  King  " — that  is,  the  "  an- 
ointed King"  of  the  Jews.  To  every  charge  made 
against  him  Jesus  remained  obstinately  silent  to  his  ac- 
cusers. Pilate  was  evidently  taken  by  surprise  at  the 
extent  of  the  charges,  and  asked  Jesus,  in  public,  as  to 
what  answer  he  had  to  make  to  the  charge  of  proclaim- 
ing himself  King.  Jesus  simply  confessed  the  charge 
and  remained  silent.  Pilate,  who  saw  danger  brewing, 
took  him  apart  and  examined  him  privately  on  this 
matter.  Jesus,  without  retracting  his  confession,  is  said 
to  have  made  some  explanation  of  his  mysterious  notions 
about  the  nature  of  his  kingdom,  which  Pilate  accepted 
as  satisfactory.  But  the  difficulty  did  not  lay  with 
Pilate,  who  was  already  pre-determined  to  save  him,  and 
disappoint  their  common  enemies,  but  it  lay  in  satisfying 
the  Jews,  who  were  determined  to  convict  him  as  a 
matter  of  expediency  and  safety.  And,  before  these 
latter,  Jesus  refused  to  make  either  reply  or  explanation. 
If  he  ever  made  any  explanation  before  Pilate,  he  cer- 


5IO  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

tainly  refused  to  let  the  public  know  it.  He  boldly 
claimed  to  be  "  King  of  the  Jews,"  and  refused  to  make 
either  retraction,  explanation  or  concession  to  conciliate 
his  accusers  or  to  relieve  Pilate  from  the  terrible 
dilemma  in  which  he  had  placed  him  by  his  own  con- 
fession of  guilt  upon  the  political  charge.  He  seems  to 
have  fallen  into  one  of  his  moody  fits,  and  would  yield 
nothing  before  his  Jewish  enemies,  but  relied  solely  upon 
his  powerful  friends  and  the  Romans  for  his  safety.  He 
was,  perhaps,  so  ignorant  of  the  character  of  Tiberius 
Caesar  as  to  be  unaware  of  the  fatal  dilemma  into  which 
he  was  driving  his  advocate  and  judge.  He  may  not 
have  clearly  seen,  that  to  ignore  such  a  palpable  and 
confessed  breach  of  law  and  indignity  to  the  sovereignty 
of  the  Roman  Emperor,  in  the  face  of  such  powerful 
Jewish  opposition,  was  more  than  even  Pilate  dared  do. 

In  spite  of  this  conduct  of  Jesus,  however,  Pilate  re- 
turned to  the  Jews  with  the  verdict — "  I  find  no  fault 
in  this  man."  Upon  this  the  Jews  grew  furious  and  im- 
portunate. But,  in  reiterating  and  specializing  their 
charges,  it  leaked  out  that  Jesus  was  a  Galilean.  The 
adroit  advocate  and  wily  judge  at  once  seized  and 
acted  upon  the  hint  this  fact  suggested.  If  Jesus  was  a 
Galilean  he  was  a  subject  of  Herod,  and  Herod  happened 
to  be  then  in  Jerusalem,  and  had  nothing  to  fear  from 
the  people  of  Judea.  Pilate  could,  therefore,  send  this 
Galilean  to  be  tried  before  the  Ruler  of  Galilee. 

In  pursuance  of  this  new  hope,  the  cause,  the  pris- 
oner, and  his  accusers  were  sent  to  Herod  for  his 
examination  and  decision.  This  apparently  friendly 


THE   TRIAL.  511 

compliment  and  defference  to  Herod,  with  such  messages 
as  Pilate  would  naturally  send  to  him,  doubtlessly  stimu- 
lated the  favorable  inclinations  of  Herod.  At  all  events 
Herod  declined  to  sentence  Jesus,  although  he  had 
remained  even  more  obstinately  silent  before  him  than 
he  had,  publicly,  before  Pilate. 


When  Jesus  was  returned  to  Pilate  by  Herod,  Pilate 
again  called  the  Jewish  Rulers,  and  announced  this 
second  acquittal  of  the  prisoner  :  and  again  proposed  his 
final  discharge.  And,  to  make  the  matter  more  pala- 
table to  his  excited  accusers,  he  proposed  to  first  chastise 
and  humiliate  him,  and  then  discharge  him.  But  this 
offer  failed  to  placate  the  Jews.  They  did  not  care  to 
have  him  suffer,  merely,  but  desired  to  get  rid  of  him. 

But  Pilate's  resources  had  not  failed,  nor  did  his 
courage  or  efforts  slacken.  Remembering  that  it  was 
customary,  at  the  feast  of  the  Passover,  to  grant  a  pardon 
to  some  Jewish  convict  or  prisoner,  on  the  petition  of  the 
people,  Pilate  proposed  that,  in  obedience  to  this  custom 
he  would  release  unto  them  Jesus,  and  thus  justify 
their  accusation  of  him  and  compel  him  to  owe  his  life 
and  freedom  to  their  clemency.  This  overture,  also,  was 
rejected,  amid  the  wildest  excitement. 

In  the  very  teeth  of  a  riot  Pilate  still  presented  a  de- 
termined front,  and  exhibited  a  spirit  even  more  un- 
yielding and  subtle,  if  less  excitable,  than  that  of  the 


512  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

Jews.  His  zeal  was  stimulated,  also,  more  than  once, 
during  the  course  of  the  trial.  His  wife's  appeal  to  him 
was  calculated  to  arouse  both  his  sympathies  and  his 
superstition.  Even  on  the  judgment  seat  her  message 
reached  him — "  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  blood  of 
that  just  man  :  for  I  have  suffered  many  things  this  day 
in  a  dream  because  of  him."  Then  again  it  transpired 
that  Jesus  claimed  to  be  a  son  of  God,  setting  Pilate  in 
a  real  tremor -of  dread  as  to  the  possibilities,  and  sending 
him  promptly  into  the  palace  for  another  private  con- 
ference, and  to  concoct  new  schemes.  It  was  not  until 
Pilate  had  made  some  dozen  different  efforts  to  publicly 
save  Jesus,  that  he  was  finally  driven  to  the  necessity  of 
publicly  acknowledging  his  public  defeat. 

The  final  effort  of  Pilate  to  produce  a  reaction  in 
favor  of  Jesus  was  worthy  of  his  versatile  and  politic  na- 
ture. He  had  not,  and  could  not  have  had,  any  doubt 
as  to  the  dangerous  position  in  which  he  was  placed  from 
the  moment  the  charge  of  treason  against  the  Emperor 
was  distinctly  urged  and  openly  confessed.  The  open 
and  notorious  pretensions  and  acts  of  Jesus,  also,  had, 
beyond  question,  rendered  him  liable  to  the  penalties  of 
treason.  It  was  impossible  to  avoid  either  the  prior 
evidences  or  his  persistent  present  confession.  Pilate 
cared  nothing  for  the  opinion  of  the  Jews,  but  he  knew 
in  what  light  his  acquittal  of  Jesus  under  such  a  charge, 
and  with  such  proofs,  could  be  represented  to  the  Em- 
peror. In  this  point  of  view  he  had  struggled,  in  every 
conceivable  mode,  to  placate  .and  mollify  the  prosecutors. 
Unfortunately,  the  wily  Jews  understood  his  purposes 
and  the  hold  they  had  upon  him  as  well  as  he  did ;  and, 
when  utterly  tired  out  by  Pilate's  delays,  manoeuvres 


THE   TRIAL.  513 

and  private  consultation,  in  the  palace,  they  made  their 
knowledge  and  power  unmistakably  known  and  felt  in 
their  final  play  in  the  game.  Their  trump  card  came  in 
this  form  :  "  If  thou  let  this  man  go,  thou  art  no  friend 
of  Ccesat's:" — an  accusation  which  Pilate  well  knew 
would  meet  a  ready  and  ruthless  endorsement  from  his 
tyrant  master.  He  might  not  finally  succumb  to  this 
menace — he  might  evade  it  secretly,  but  he  dared  not 
defy  it  openly.  And  yet,  he  endeavored,  with  consum- 
mate cunning,  to  reverse  his  defeat  in  the  very  act  of 
finally  conceding  it.  Knowing  the  wonderfully  impres- 
sible and  emotional  nature  of  the  Jews,  this  consummate 
advocate  and  actor  assumed  the  most  thrilling  tragic 
vein  in  the  final  scene.  In  the  midst  of  the  turbulent 
cries  of  the  passionate  multitude  he  ordered  water  to  be 
brought  out  to  his  judgment  seat,  and  there,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  whole  multitude,  he  solemnly  washed  his 
hands,  exclaiming — "  I  am  innocent  of  the  blood  of  this 
righteous  man  :  see  ye  to  it." 

This  last  attempt  to  produce  a  revulsion  of  feeling  in 
favor  of  Jesus  having  failed,  nothing  could  now  save  him 
from  the  cross.  Up  to  that  point,  at  least,  the  Jews  had 
won;  and  Pilate  stood  publicly  bullied,  defeated  and 
humiliated.  He  had  tried  in  vain  to  publicly  persuade,  or 
elude  them.  If  he  could  yet  succeed,  he  would  be  com- 
pelled to  secretly  hood-wink  and  delude  them.  Would 
he,  and  Could  he,  do  it  ?  This  was  the  question. 

33 


514  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

We  have  now  seen  something  of  the  character  of 
Pilate,  something  of  his  relations  with  the  Jewish  pros- 
ecutors of  Jesus,  something  of  the  feelings,  motives  and 
purposes  with  regard  to  Jesus  and  his  cause :  the  ques- 
tion now  arises — Will  this  man  Pilate  finally  yield  the 
life  for  which  he  has  so  earnestly  and  gallantly  fought, 
to  the  demands  of  their  common  enemies,  without  a  fur- 
ther struggle  ?  Will  his  own  public  defeat  and  humilia- 
tion cow  this  politic  and  flexible,  but  obstinate  advocate, 
or  will  it  gall  and  inspire  him  ?  Would  an  advocate  of 
such  fertility  of  resource  abandon  his  client  on  the  first 
conviction  without  an  effort  to  delay,  avoid,  or  reverse 
the  fatal  result,  if  not  by  an  appeal,  still  by  some  other 
method  ?  Would  such  an  advocate  and  judge,  burning 
with  indignation  at  the  cruelty  and  injustice  of  the  fate 
of  his  client  and  with  the  undeserved  humiliation  of  a 
defeat  which  had  been  openly  and  nakedly  forced  upon 
him  by  the  threats  of  his  hated,  but  dreaded  enemies, 
tamely  yield  while  there  still  remained  power  and  re- 
sources in  his  hands  to  right  these  wrongs,  and  while  he 
had  his  own  wife  and  the  powerful  friends  of  Jesus  to 
urge  him  to  the  extremity  of  effort  ?  If  the  life  of  Jesus 
could  still  be  saved,  surely  every  motive  which  could 
stimulate  Pilate,  whether  as  judge,  advocate,  executive, 
husband  or  man,  urged  him  to  continue  his  efforts  to 
the  last,  to  avoid,  as  far  as  possible,  this  cruel  and.  forced 
sentence.  That  such  efforts  were  made  and  were  suc- 
cessful, is  evidenced  at  almost  every  step  of  the  subse- 
quent proceedings,  although  in  a  manner  to  avoid  expos- 
ure and  responsibility.  That  the  effort  to  evade  so 
cruel  a  sentence  and  one  forced  upon  the  Judge  in  defi- 
ance of  his  own  convictions  by  the  personal  intimi- 


THE   TRIAL.  515 

dations  of   the  prosecutors   and  mob,  was  thoroughly 
justifiable  and  right,  none  will  question. 

Had  Pilate,  aided  by  his  soldiers,  agents  and  ser- 
vants, as  well  as  by  the  powerful  Jewish  friends  of  Jesus, 
the/0ztwand  opportunity  to  save  the  life  of  this  con- 
demned man  ;  while  submitting  to  a  partial  execution  of 
the  sentence  ?  Of  this  there  is  as  little  doubt  as  that 
he  would  attempt  it.  We  have  already  seen,  that  the 
exclusive  control  of  everything  was  in  his  hands.  As 
he  had  only  one  check  to  his  power  on  the  trial,  so  he 
had  but  one  check  to  his  power  in  executing  or  avoid- 
ing the  sentence, — namely :  the  necessity  for  guarding 
against  furnishing  the  Jewish  rulers  with  proofs  of  his 
own  personal  complicity  in  the  escape  of  the  prisoner. 
Could  he  but  avoid  this,  his  power,  as  well  as  his  inclina- 
tion, to  save  the  prisoner  was  unlimited.  We  shall  find 
that,  at  every  stage  of  the  proceedings,  and  during  every 
moment  of  time  from  the  condemnation  of  Jesus  until 
his  re-appearance  from  the  tomb  of  Joseph  after  the  cru- 
cifixion, he  was  in  the  hands  and  under  the  exclusive 
management  and  control  of  his  ardent  supporters  or 
friends.  We  also  know  that,  during  the  trial,  as  well 
as  after  it,  the  Roman  authorities  had  ample  opportuni- 
ties for  secret  consultations  and  arrangements  among 
themselves  and  with  the  Jewish  friends  of  Jesus,  and  of 
bringing  to  bear  their  entire  joint  cunning  and  resources 
to  save  the  prisoner  ;  and  that,  with  their  joint  power 
and  resources,  they  could  command  all  the  skill  and 
means  for  the  accomplishment  of  their  purposes  which 
the  time  and  city  afforded.  Every  medical  aid  was 
within  their  reach,  and  every  officer  and  soldier  did  but 
reflect  the  secret  will  and  desire  of  Pijate.  It  was  these 


5l6  JESUS   AND"  RELIGION. 

friends  or  aiders  of  Jesus,  who  determined  the  place  of 
execution,  the  character  of  the  cross  and  of  the  imple- 
ments to  be  used  and  of  the  time  and  manner  of  using 
them  and  the  treatment  of  the  prisoner  and  the  final 
fact  of  death.  They  determined,  also,  what  drinks 
should  be  administered  while  he  was  on  the  cross,  and 
administered  them  in  their  own  way  and  time.  They 
formed  the  military  cordon  around  the  place  of  execu- 
tion, and  determined  who  should  be  permitted  to  come 
within  it,  and  how  near  the  public  were  to  be  allowed  to 
approach.  They  decided  when  the  punishment  was 
complete,  and  when  he  should  be  taken  from  the  cross, 
and  whether  his  limbs  should,  or  should  not,  be  broken, 
as  vyas  the  custom.  They  decided  as  to  the  custody  of 
him  after  he  was  taken  from  the  cross,  and  as  to  his  dis- 
posal and  treatment  afterwards.  To  these  facilities  we 
shall  find  ourselves  enabled  to  add  a  rare  concurrence  of 
circumstances  favoring  the  chance  and  encouraging  the 
.  purpose  of  saving  the  life  of  the  prisoner.  The  fact  of  the 
trial  and  execution  having  occurred  on  the  "  preparation 
day  "  for  the  sabbath  of  the  Passover,  which  "  sabbath 
day  was  a  high  day,"  was  a  most  fortunate  coincidence. 
The  Jews  had  been  compelled,  on  this  account,  to  re- 
main entirely  outside  of  the  palace,  and  thus  to  give  the 
amplest  opportunity  to  the  friends  of  the  prisoner  for 
unobstructed  conferences  and  for  pre-arrangements  for 
concerted  action.  The  requisite  preparations  for  this 
great  religious  feast  would,  and  did,  compel  the  Jews  to 
retire  early  fr,om  the  place  of  execution,  as  they  all  had 
to  be  finished  by  sundown  ; — that  being  the  commence- 
ment of  the  sabbath  day  in  question,  after  which  nothing 
could  be  done.  By  law,  also,  the  body  of  Jesus  was  com- 


THE    TRIAL.  5  I/ 

pelled  to  be  taken  from  the  cross  and  disposed  of  before 
sunset  on  the  day  of  his  execution.  These  concurring 
facts  were  fortunate  in  the  extreme.  So  that  we  enter 
upon  a  consideration  of  the  evidence  with  an  assurance 
of  the  presence  of  the  desire/ the  means,  the  power,  and 
the  purpose  to  save,  and  also  with  an  assurance  of  the 
existence  of  the  rarest  opportunities  and  of  the  most 
propitious  concurrence  of  favorable  conditions  opening 
the  way  for  success  and  stimulating  and  encouraging 
endeavor.  We  not  only  have  these  powerful  persuasives 
to  believe  and  expect  that  the  man  will  be  saved,  but 
we  have  the  overwhelming  fact  that  he  was  actually  alive 
afterwards,  and  was  secretly  bivouacing  and  eating  fisk 
on  the  shores  of  his  old  Galilean  sea,  a  month  or  more 
afterwards ! 


,  Although  the  facts  of  the  crucifixion,  as  detailed  to  us 
in  the  Gospels,  are  perfectly  compatible  with  the  natural 
survival  and  recovery  of  Jesus, — nay,  are  almost  absolute- 
ly incompatible  with  any  other  results,  there  are  so  many 
indications  and  evidences  of  a  design  and  effort  to  save 
him,  that  it  is  deemed  proper  to  treat  the  matter  from 
that  point  of  view.  The  facts,  however  caused,  will  be 
found  utterly  incompatible  with  any  other  hypothesis 
than  that  of  continued  life  on  the  cross  and  afterwards. 
But,  as  acts  are  always  best  comprehended  in  connection 
with  the  real  motives  and  purposes  of  the  actors,  and  as 
the  yery  fact  that  consistent  and  characteristic  motives 
can  be  shown,  to  explain  a  long  and  varied  series  of 


5l8  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

facts  and  transactions  in  accordance  with  a  hypothesis 
based  upon  design  and  intention,  is  almost  conclusive  of 
the  truth  of  such  hypothesis,  we  shall  do  well  to  examine 
the  facts  with  a  theory  of  design ;  assured  that,  if  we 
fail  as  to  the  conclusiveness  of  our  evidences  of  design, 
we  have  still  the  theory  of  natural  preservation  and  the 
omnipotent  fact  of  preservation  to  fallback  upon.  We 
must  not,  of  course,  expect  to  find  a  purpose  to  save 
Jesus  openly  expressed  or  glaringly  manifested  through 
the  scenes  of  the  execution,  as  we  have  through  the 
scenes  of  the  trial ;  since  we  know  that  all  such  purposes 
were  attempted  to  be  concealed.  But,  while  the  purposes 
and  influences  which  shaped  and  controlled  the  facts 
lay  concealed  beneath  them,  they  were  not  so  deeply 
buried  as  to  fail  to  make  an  intelligible  line  of  ripples 
on  the  surface  of  the  current  of  facts,  by  which  we  are 
enabled  to  detect  and  judge  them. 

After  the  sentence .  had  been  irrevocably  passed, 
under  the  coercion  of  the  Jews,  one  of  Pilate's  cen- 
turions was  entrusted  with  its  execution,  and,  with  a 
sufficient  guard  of  soldiers,  proceeded  to  Calvary  with 
the  prisoner.  We  have  accounts  of  indignities  having 
been  offered  to  Jesus  during  the  trial,  which  were  of  no 
moment;  since,  with  the  exception  of  scourging — (at 
least  a  report  or  pretence  of  which  must  have  been  gone 
through  with  as  a  necessary  part  of  the  punishment  of 
crucifixion)  the  indignities  consisted  of  mere  mockeries 
of  his  royalty,  and  were  really  done,  or  reported  to  have 
been  done,  to  appease  and  placate  the  Jews.  If  these 
things  were  actually  done,  they  were  done  under  Pilate's 
eye  and  direction,  and  we  can  estimate  about  how  much 


THE   TRIAL.  519 

Jesus  would  be  really  injured  by  them,  by  Pilate's  con- 
duct before  his  conviction  and  by  the  wholly  exceptional 
kindness  with  which  he  caused  Jesus  to  be  treated  after 
his  conviction.  For  whatever  was  not  exceptionally  kind 
and  considerate  occurred  before  he  was  finally  ordered 
to  execution,  and  we  can  comprehend  the  weight  of 
Pilate's  blows  on  this  "just  man"  in  whom  he  "found 
no  fault,"  and  for  whose  acquittal  he  had  so  ardently 
struggled.  We  find  an  exhibition  of  the  real  feeling  of 
Pilate  and  of  his  subordinates  towards  Jesus,  at  the  very 
outset  of  the  execution.  It  was  customary  for  the 
prisoners  to  bear  their  own  crosses.  But,  no  sooner 
had  they  left  the  hall  of  justice  than  the  centurion,  with- 
out deigning  to  assign  or  feign  an  excuse,  seized  upon 
the  first  sturdy  fellow  he  found,  and  compelled  him  to 
carry  the  cross  of  Jesus  to  Calvary — (Matt,  xxvii.-xxxii. 
Luke  xxiii.-xxvi.  Mark  xv.-xxi).  This  was  not  only  a 
partiality  shown  him,  but  a  matter  of  policy  to  conserve 
his  strength  for  the  brief  but  exhausting  ordeal  through 
which,  in  any  event,  he  had  to  pass.  It  may  be  suggested 
that  Jesus  was  feeble,  but  no  such  suggestion  can  be 
maintained.  No  such  explanation  is  hinted  in  the 
Gospels ;  and  it  comes  with  bad  grace  from  those  who 
claim  that  he  is  the  final  and  supreme  type  of  that  sacri- 
fice which  was  to  be  perfect  of  its  kind — "  without  spot 
or  blemish."  Besides,  from  the  whole  tenor  of  his  life 
and  habits,  we  learn  that  he  was  a  hearty  and  free  liver 
— was  active,  agile  and  healthy,  with  a  free,  open-air  life, 
and  without  a  single  hour's  sickness  during  all  of  his 
recorded  life.  This  is  a  matter  which  we  must  also 
carefully  remember  when  we  come  to  consider  how 
much  punishment  he  was  capable  of  withstanding. 


52O-  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

THE    CRUCIFIXION. 

ON  the  march  out  of  the  city  and  up  the  little  knoll 
or  hill  of  Calvary  nothing  of  moment  occurred  save  the 
refusal  of  Jesus  to  partake  of  the  "wine  and  myrrh" 
which  was  tendered  him  by  some  friendly  hand.  This 
cup  of  wine  mixed  with  myrrh  was  called  the  "mercy 
cup,"  and  was  usually  offered  by  sympathizers  or  friends, 
to  persons  who  were  going  on  the  cross,  for  the  purpose 
of  enabling  them  to  bear  their  sufferings,  by  deadening 
their  sensibilities  to  pain  and  stimulating  them  to  bear 
them.  Although  it  was  a  customary  kindness  to  the 
crucified  it  was  not  offered  in  this  instance  by  the 
Romans,  and  was  promptly  rejected  by  Jesus.  His 
bearing  during  the  march  was  collected  and  confident, 
and,  together  with  his  refusal  of  the  "  mercy  cup,"  shows 
that  he  was  not  only  not  exhausted,  but  was  determined  to 
have  his  senses  unimpaired  while  on  the  cross,  even  at 
the  expense  of  greater  pain.  He  had  been  so  favored  that, 
on  arriving  at  the  place  of  execution,  he  was  evidently 
neither  seriously  exhausted,  nor  debilitated  in  body  or 
mind  ;  although  perhaps  nervously  irritated  and  a  little 
faint  from  fasting  : — all  of  which  are  facts  which  it  con- 
cerns us  to  remember. 


THE    CRUCIFIXION.  521 

While  the  military  cordon  is  being  formed  around 
the  summit  of  Calvary  to  keep  off  the  by-standers,  and 
the  preparations  are  being  made  to  place  the  prisoner 
on  the  cross,  we  may  pause  to  examine  this  cross  and 
form  some  correct  notion  of  its  construction,  as  well  as 
of  the  punishment  it  inflicts  : — a  knowledge  which  is 
not  only  absolutely  necessary  to  any  kind  of  compre- 
hension of  the  subjects  to  be  considered,  but  which  we 
are  sadly  deficient  in.  We  must,  therefore,  ask  the 
Reader,  not  only  to  carefully  consider  the  descriptions 
which  will  be  given,  but  to  resolutely  displace  from  his 
mind  the  false  images  and  notions  of  crosses  and  cruci- 
fixions which  have  been  placed  there  by  ignorant  or 
designing  priests,  authors  and  artists,  and  to  substitute 
the  true  ones. 


Doctor  Stroud,  a  learned  Christian  physician,  has 
written  a  work  entitled — "  Physical  causes  of  the  death 
of  Christ,"  from  which  we  have  largely  drawn  our  facts 
in  regard  to  crosses  and  crucifixions,  and  from  which, 
also,  we  shall  quote  freely,  italicizing  as  we  shall  deem 
necessary.  This  learned  Doctor  tells  us,  that  the  cross 
and  crucifixion  "  has  often  been  erroneously  represented 
by  painters,  poets  and  devotional  writers."  And,  after 
stating  that  Salmatius  and  Lipsius  had  macle  exhaustive 
researches  into  the  matter,  and  that  he  relied  upon  their 
labors,  he  concludes  that,  "  From  these  and  similar 
authorities  it  is  clearly  ascertained,  that  the  punishment 
of  crucifixion  was  peculiarly  painful,  lingering  and 


$22  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

ignominious.  The  cross  consisted  of  a  strong  upright 
post,  sharpened  at  the  lower  end  by  which  it  was  fixed 
in  -the  ground,  having  a  short  bar  or  stake  projecting 
from  its  middle,  and  a  longer  transverse  beam  joined 
near  the  top.  As  the  middle  bar,  although  an  impor- 
tant appendage,  has  been  almost  universally  overlooked 
by  modern  authors,  it  will  be  proper  here  to  insert  the 
account  given  of  it  by  some  of  the  early  Fathers  of  the 
Church  and  founded  on  personal  observation.  '  The 
structure  of  the  cross,'  says  Iraeneus, '  has  jive  ends  or 
summits,  two  in  length,  two  in  breadth,  and  one  in  the 
middle  on  which  the  crucified  rested'  Justin  Martyr,  in 
like  manner,  speaks  of  '  that  end  projecting  from  the 
middle  [of  the  upright  post]  like  a  horn  on  which  the 
crucified  persons  were  seated ;  '  and  the  language  of 
Tertullian,  who  wrote  a  little  later,  exactly  corresponds 
— '  a  part,  and  indeed  a  principle  part  of  the  cross,  is  any 
post  which  is  affixed  in  an  upright  position  ;  but  to  us 
the  entire  cross  is  imputed,  including  the  transverse 
beam,  and  the  projecting  bar  which  serves  as  a  seat?  " 

Thus,  we  plainly  learn  from  the  early  Fathers  of  the 
Church,  that  we  have  been  grossly  deluded  in  relation  to 
the  character  of  the  cross  and  the  punishment  of  cruci- 
fixion. We  have  been  taught  to  believe  that  the  sufferer 
hung  his  almost  entire  weight  upon  large  nails  driven 
through  the  body  of  his  hands  and  into  a  cross-bar  above 
his  head  ;  while  a  single  spike  was  driven  through  both 
of  his  feet  and  into  the  upright  post, — these  nails  through 
the  hands  and  feet  being  his  only  support.  This  whole 
conception  we  find  to  be  radically  false  and  grossly  de- 
lusive as  to  the  nature  and  degree  of  the  suffering  in- 


THE    CRUCIFIXION.  523 

flicted.  The  facts  are,  that  the  body  was  not  sup- 
ported, to  any  extent,  by  either  the  fastenings  of  the 
hands  or  feet.  The  hands  and  arms  were  stretched  out 
horizontally  along  the  cross-bar  and  fastened  to  it,  to 
prevent  the  sufferer  from  struggling  to  release  himself, 
and  to  keep  him  in  his  seat.  There  are  strong  reasons 
for  believing  that  the  whole  story  about  the  use  of  nails 
is  a  subsequent  fabrication  ;  for  it  certainly  was  not  a 
necessary  requisite  of  crucifixion.  Nor  is  it  consistent 
with  the  beliefs  and  conduct  of  the  Romans  with  refer- 
ence to  Jesus,  who  in  everything  else  so  favored  him, 
that  they  should  have  put  themselves  to  the  inconve- 
nience of  adding  this  unnecessary  cruelty  to  his  punish- 
ment. Nor  is  the  fact  of  nailing  of  the  feet  mentionedj 
even  in  the  Gospels.  Nor  is  the  nailing  of  the  hands 
mentioned  in  either  of  the  Gospel  accounts  of  the  cruci- 
fixion :  the  place  .where  it  ought  to  have  been  mentioned, 
had  it  occurred.  Nor  does  either  of  the  Gospels  ever 
mention  or  refer  to  such  a  fact,  except  the  fourth 
Gospel.  That  Gospel  appears  to  refer,  inferentially,  to 
the  nailing  of  the  hands,  in  describing  Jesus'  mode  of 
making  himself  known  to  his  disciples  upon  his  re- 
appearance among  them  after  the  crucifixion.  It  says 
that  Jesus  "  shewed  them  his  hands  and  his  side." 
Neither  of  the  other  Gospels  mentions  such  an  occur- 
rence. On  the  contrary,  Luke  mentions  this  exhibition 
of  his  person,  but  in  an  entirely  different  way.  Luke 
has  it,  that  the  disciples  thought  Jesus  was  a  ghost,  and 
that  to  convince  them  that  he  was  still  in  the  flesh, 
Jesus  said  to  them — "  Behold  my  hands  and  feet,  that  it 
is  myself  :  handle  me  and  see  ;  for  a  spirit  hath  not  flesh 
and  bonesr  as  ye  see  me  have ; "  and  he  then  showed 


524  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

them  his  hands  and  feet.  Here  we /have  nothing  about 
the  "  side,"  or  about  holes  in  the  hands  or  side,  but 
a  simple  and  natural  invitation  to  convince  themselves 
of  his  bodily  presence  by  examining  his  hands  and  feet, 
— the  parts  of  his  flesh  which  were  not  covered  by  his 
clothing.  The  fourth  Gospel  also  tells  us,  that  Thomas 
being  incredulous,  Jesus  afterwards  invited  him  to  thrust 
his  hand  into  his  side,  etc.  This  whole  matter  about 
Thomas,  and  the  spear  thrust,  and  the  hole  in  the  side 
(big  enough  to  thrust  a  man's  hand  in  it,  and  yet  made  by 
the  point  of  a  spear  !  ),  and  the  pleasant  idea  of  having 
a  man  thrust  his  hand  into  such  a  wound,  when  three 
days  old,  is  confined  to  the  fourth  Gospel,  and  is  directly 
discredited  by  Luke's  account.  There  were  controversial 
reasons  for  inserting  these  statements  in  the  fourth  Gos- 
pel, which  furnish  a  sufficient  motive  for  the  attempt  to 
show,  that  Jesus  was  actual  flesh  and  blood,  and  had  been 
a  real  bodily  sufferer.  For,  although  the  subsequent  dis- 
ciples of  Jesus  did  not  believe  him  to  have  been  a  ghost, 
there  early  grew  up  a  belief,  among  many,  that  he  was 
not  a  real  flesh-and-blood-human,  but  a  mere  simulachre 
or  divine  semblance  of  a  man,  who  neither  did,  nor  could 
surfer.  To  forestall  this  heretical  notion,  it  was  deemed 
necessary,  in  this  supplementary  Gospel,  to  exhibit 
some  striking  evidences  of  the  actual  humanity  and 
human  suffering  of  Jesus,  as  well  as  of  his  actual  divinity, 
upon  which  that  Gospel  takes  so  high  a  pitch  ;  the 
difficulty  to  be  met  being  twofold : — one  set  of  believers 
contending  that  Jesus  was  a  mere  man,  and  another  set 
believing  him  a  mere  God,  and  consequently  incapable  of 
real  death  or  suffering — a  doctrine  fatal  to  that  of  atone- 
ment. While,  therefore,  we  discredit  this  whole  sug- 


THE    CRUCIFIXION.  525 

gestion  about  the  nailing  the  hands  of  Jesus  to  the 
cross,  it  does  not  conflict  with  our  theory  or  materially 
affect  it.  For,  as  there  was  no  weight  bearing  on  the 
hands  or  nails,  the  mere  fact  of  a  wrought  nail  being 
driven  through  the  skin  or  flesh  of  the  hand  to  keep  it  in 
place  would  not  materially  hasten  death,  and  certainly 
would  not  materially  affect  the  result  as  to  life  or  death 
during  the  brief  time  that  Jesus  remained-  upon  the 
cross ;  although  it  would  have  inflicted  additional  pain. 
If,  however,  we  would  estimate  the  facts  at  their  real 
worth,  we  will  not  go  beyond  the  Gospel  accounts  of  the 
cricifixion  itself,  but  regard  Jesus  as  having  been  seated 
on  the  cross  in  the  usual  way,  with  his  hands  or  arms 
tied  .to  the  arms  of  the  cross-bar.  As  to  the  spike 
through  his  feet,  it  is  a  pure  invention  of  after  times, 
to  enhance  the  agony  of  Jesus  and  excite  the  pity  of  the 
beholder.  It  is  not  only  a  sheer  invention,  but  an  im- 
possible suggestion.  It  would  be  impossible  to  nail  one 
foot,  much  less  both,  with  a  single  nail,  to  the  upright 
post  of  a  cross,  against  which  the  feet  would  rest  at 
a  right  angle,  with  the  heel  to  the  post ;  unless,  indeed, 
the  knees  were  drawn  up  at  a  right  angle. 


The  object  in  inflicting  crucifixion  was  not  to  violently 
destroy  life,  or  hasten  death,  by  wounds  or  by  direct  and 
overpowering  inflictions,  but  the  very  reverse  of  this  was 
the  object,  namely:  to  prolong  the  suffering  as  much  as 
possible,  and  to  destroy  life  by  the  most  lingering  torture 


526  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

and  exhaustion.  The  victims  of  it  were  not  killed,  but 
were  allowed  to  perish,  through  want  and  suffering. 
This  was  the  peculiarity  and  horror  of  the  punishment. 
To  be  killed  was  a  boon  always  prayed  for,  and  some- 
times granted  as  a  special  favor.  The  prisoner  was 
set  astride  of  the  wooden  horn  or  saddle  which  projected 
out  from  the  middle  of  the  upright  post,  with  his  back  to 
the  post.  On  this  he  sat,  and  on  this  he  rested  the 
the  whole  weight  of  his  body,  as  if  he  were  sitting 
astride  the  limb  of  a  tree,  with  his  back  to  the  tree,  and 
his  feet  about  twenty-four  inches  from  the  ground.  To 
secure  him  in  that  one,  exhausting  position,  his  arms 
were  stretched  out  horizon  tally  along  the  two  arms  of  the 
cross-bar,  and  fastened  to  them.  The  prisoner  was  dis- 
robed. And  thus,  confined  and  naked,  under  the  burn- 
ing sun  or  freezing  cold,  through  the  weary  and  agonizing 
days  and  the  still  more  weary  and  desolate  nights,  and 
through  storm  and  tempest,  the  doomed  sufferer  sat  in 
his  cramped  and  unchangeable  position,  and  wore  his  life 
away  through  hunger,  thirst,  want  and  suffering,  and 
through  alternate  sinkings  and  rallyings  of  his  oppressed 
nature  and  often  through  many  and  prolonged  fain  tings 
and  revivals  and  many  weary  hours  of  insensibility, — 
such  as  are  incident  to  all  prolonged  torture.  As  a 
special  favor  to  the  sufferer  or  his  friends  this  prolonged 
torture  was  sometimes  ended  by  a  violent  death,  after 
the  prisoner  had  suffered  it  for  two  or  three  days  and 
nights. 

As  to  the  character  of  this  punishment,  Dr.  Stroud 
says  :  "  The  bodily  sufferings  attending  this  punishment 
were  doubtless  great,  but  either  through  ignorance  01 


THE    CRUCIFIXION.  527 

design,  have  been  much  exaggerated."  He  declares  that 
the  crucified  die  chiefly  by  a  "  slow  process  of  nervous 
irritation  and  exhaustion,"  and  that  "  this  would,  of 
course,  be  liable  to  variety,  depending  upon  differences 
of  age,  sex  and  constitution,  and  other  circumstances ; 
but  for  persons  to  live  two  or  more  days  on  the  cross  was 
a  common  occurrence,  and  there  were  even  instances  of 
some  who  having  been  taken  down,  recovered  and  re- 
vived?' This  learned  physician  has  been  at  the  pains  of 
collecting  a  large  number  of  instances  of  crucifixion.  A 
reference  to  a  few  of  these  cases  will  prepare  us  to  under- 
stand that  of  Jesus'.  The  apostle  Andrew  continued 
preaching  from  the  cross  for  two  days  before  he  expired. 
Bishop  Victor  who  was  crucified  with  his  head  down- 
wards survived  two  days.  Calliopus,  a  handsome  youth, 
lived  twenty-four  hours  on  the  cross  "after  suffering 
most  cruel  tortures  by  being  scourged,  broken  on  a  wheel, 
and  partially  burnt  !  "  Captain  Clapperton  was  told,  in 
Soudan,  that  "  wretches  on  the  cross  generally  linger 
three  days"  Chaban,  a  captain  of  banditti  and  about 
the  age  of  Jesus,  who  was  executed  at  Salonica  in  A.  D. 
1830,  exemplified  what  a  healthy  man  of  that  age  can 
endure  in  such  matters.  The  Doctor  tells  us  that,  "  As 
a  preparatory  exercise,  he  was  suspended  by  his  arms  for 
twelve  hours.  *  The  following  day  a  hook  was 

thrust  into  his  side,  by  which  he  was  suspended  to  a 
tree,  and  there  hung,  enduring  the  agony  of  thirst  till  the 
third  evening''  Hassan  Corso,  at  the  age  of  thirty-eight 
years,  was  executed  at  Algiers  in  A.  D.  1556.  Having 
been  cast  from  a  considerable  height  onto  the  chingan  or 
hook,"  he  remained  in  that  torture  three  whole  days  and 
two  nights  with  the  hook  through  his  right  side  ribs." 


528  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

These  few  examples  suffice  to  show,  that  ordinary 
crucifixion  did  not  usually  destroy  life  for  at  least  two  or 
three  days,  and  that  young  and  healthy  men  like  Jesus 
could  withstand  vastly  more  appalling  tortures  for  that 
length  of  time.  The  most  delicate  or  feeble  could  not  be 
expected  to  expire  under  twenty-four  hours ;  while  the 
more  extreme  cases  of  endurance  under  crucifixion  show, 
that  men  have  survived  on  the  cross  for  four,  five,  six 
and  sometimes  seven  days  and  nights.  And,  if  we  are 
to  credit  church  histories,  there  was  an  instance  of  still 
more  prolonged  endurance.  In  the  persecution  under 
Diocletian  (we  are  told),  one  Timotheus  and  Maura  his 
wife,  "  after  enduring  many  horrible  tortures  with  in- 
conceivable constancy  "  were  "  crucified  together  :  and 
having  hung  alive  on  the  cross  for  nine  days  and  nights, 
mutually  exhorting  and  comforting  each  other,  expired 
on  the  tenth  day"  It  may  fairly  be  claimed,  then,  that  a 
person  of  the  age  and  condition  of  Jesus,  and  subject  to 
no  more  rigorous  treatment  than  he  received,  would  live 
on  the  cross  rather  beyond  than  under  three  days  and 
nights 


Having  acquired  some  truthful  conception  of  the 
cross,  and  of  the  nature  of  the  suffering  and  death  it  in- 
flicted and  of  the  probable  duration  of  life  under  its  in- 
flictions, it  becomes  important  to  inquire  as  to  the  hour 
or  time  of  day  at  which  Jesus  was  placed  upon  the 
cross.  On  this  subject  the  Gospels  are  in  irreconcilable 
conflict.  Two  of  them  are  indefinite  as  to  it.  The 


THE    CRUCIFIXION.  529 

author  of  the  first  Gospel  (taking  the  popular  Christian 
assumption  as  to  the  authorship  of  the  several  Gospels) 
was  in  the  city,  but  was  in  hiding  with  the  other  apostles, 
and  was  not  present  at  the  crucifixion.  The  only,  and 
very  uncertain  clue  which  he  gives  us  as  to  the  time,  is 
to  be  found  in  the  following  words  :  "Now  from  the  sixth 
hour  there  was  darkness  over  all  the  land  to  the  ninth 
hour."  This  darkness  is  evidently  intended  by  the 
author  to  cover  some  part  of  the  proceedings,  and  is 
put  forward  as  an  evidence  of  Nature's  mourning  for 
man's  final  rejection,  condemnation  and  punishment  of 
the  Son  of  God.  To  make  this  sympathy  complete,  its 
manifestation  should  commence  with  his  final  sentence, 
or  at  least  from  the  commencement  of  his  punishment, 
— namely,  his  scourging  at  the  palace  preparatory  to  his 
march  to  Calvary.  It  would  seem  difficult  to  find  any 
other  distinct  point  entitled  to  decisive  preference,  since 
the  actual  humiliation  and  scourging,  which  was  a  legit- 
imate and  necessary  part  of  the  punishment,  commenced 
before  Jesus  left  the  palace,  and  the  sentence  was  partly 
executed  there,  and  was  still  being  executed  while  walk- 
ing to  Calvary  and  vicariously  performing  the  required 
bearing  of  his  cross,  and  while  being  disrobed  and 
fastened  to  the  cross.  It  is,  however,  capable  of  being 
referred  to  the  commencement  of  his  punishment  on  the 
cross,  after  all  things  were  complete.  If  Matthew  meant  to 
apply  it  to  the  real  commencement  of  the  punishment 
at  the  palace,  then  it  will  not  only  conform  more  nearly  to 
the  possibilities  of  the  case,  but  will  correspond  with,  and 
be  confirmed  by,  John's  account,  which  places  the  final  con- 
demnation and  delivery  for  execution  at  the  sixth  hour — 
the  hour  when  Matthew  says  the  darkness  commenced. 

34 


53O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

Luke's  account  is  not  definite,  but  places  the  com- 
mencement of  the  crucifixion  proper,  at  not  later  than 
the  sixth  hour.  To  Luke  the  matter  was  all  mere  hear- 
say. Mark,  who  like  Luke  writes  from  hearsay,  tells  us, 
that  it  commenced  at  the  "  third  hour."  John,  who  was 
the  only  eye-witness,  says  that,  when  Pilate  brought  Jesus 
forth  from  his  palace  to  deliver  him  up  for  execution, 
and  exclaimed  "Behold  your  King,"  it  was  then,  already, 
the  "  sixth  hour."  By  the  method  of  computing  time  in 
the  Gospels  the  day  commenced  at  sunset,  and  the  hours 
during  daylight  were  numbered  from  sunrise,  and  on 
serially  through  twelve  consecutive  hours.  As  it  was 
then  near  the  vernal  equinox  the  sun  rose  at  about  six 
o'clock  of  our  time,  which  would  correspond  with  their 
first  hour  of  the  day.  So  that  Mark's  "third  hour"  cor- 
responded with  our  "nine  o'clock;"  while  their  "sixth 
hour "  corresponded  with  our  "  twelve  o'clock,"  and 
their  "  ninth  hour "  with  our  "three  o'clock  p.  m."  If 
the  Christian  pretensions  as  to  the  authorship  of  the 
Gospels  be  correct,  the  canons  of  evidence  will  not 
permit  us  to  hesitate  in  adopting  the  clear  and  positive 
declaration  of  the  eye-witness  John,  in  preference  to 
idefinite  statements  of  others,  or  to  those  where  the  ac- 
count was  based  on  the  general  belief  or  mere  hearsay 
evidence.  The  statement  of  John  that  it  was  about  the 
sixth  hour  or  midday  when  Pilate  brought  Jesus  out  to 
his  judgment  seat,  and  before  he  ordered  him  to  execu- 
tion, is  also  more  than  corroborated  by  the  general  facts. 
It  is  scarcely  possible,  indeed,  to  believe  that  Jesus 
was  even  finally  sentenced  as  early  as  twelve  o'clock,  as 
Joha  alleges.  When  we  remember  the  events  which 
had  happened  since  daylight  on  that  same  day,  we  are 


THE    CRUCIFIXION.  531 

almost  startled  at  the  suggestion  of  their  having  happened 
in  some  six  hours.  Luke  says,  that  "  as  soon  as  it  was 
day,  the  elders  of  the  people  and  the  chief  priests  and 
the  scribes  came  together,  and  led  him  into  their 
council,"  and  that  they  there  examined,  tried  and  con- 
demned him;  and  that  then,  "the  whole  multitude  of 
them  arose,  and  led  him  unto  Pilate."  The  assembling 
of  this  large  body  of  men,  their  leading  Jesus  into  their 
council  chamber,  their  examinations  and  consultations, 
and  their  decisions  and  final  action,  all  occurred  after 
daylight.  They  then  marched  in  a  body  to  the  palace  of 
Pilate.  Then  we  must  imagine  the  necessary  delays 
in  getting  communications  to  and  from  Pilate,  into  whose 
palace  they  could  not  enter,  and  in  securing  his  attend- 
ance ;  and  estimate  the  probable  time 'of  day  at  which  a 
great  ruler  could  be  expected  or  induced  to  enter  upon 
the  trial  of  such  a  cause.  Those  who  can  conceive  all 
this  to  have  been  done  even  by  nine  o'clock  must  have 
little  acquaintance  with  the  necessary  time  required  for 
such  proceedings.  To  accomplish  such  results,  now,  by 
noon,  would  be  considered  an  achievement  by  those  who 
are  familiar  with  the  proceedings  of  large  deliberative 
bodies  and  with  official  intercourse  and  action.  Besides 
these  proceedings,  we  have  the  first  arraignment  and  trial 
before  Pilate,  and  all  the  arguments  and  the  manoeuvres 
and  counter-manoeuvres  between  Pilate  and  the  Jews,  and 
the  various  comings-in  and  goings-out  of  Pilate,  and  his 
private  examinations  of  Jesus,  and  finally  his  transfer  of 
the  prisoner  to  Herod.  Then  we  have  the  whole 
Sanhedrim  going  in  a  body  to  another  part  of  the  city 
with  the  prisoner,  and  Herod  has  to  be  seen,  and  a  new 
process  of  charging,  examining  and  trying  the  prisoner 


532  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

has  to  be  gone  through  with,  and  all  the  time  taken 
up  in  the  mockeries  and  royal-robing  of  Jesus  has  to 
elapse,  and  another  march  back  again,  after  his  acquittal, 
before  the  matter  is  again  brought  before  Pilate  :  all  of 
which  must  have  required  a  very  considerable  time.  We 
have  then  a  repetition  of  the  scenes  on  the  former  trial, 
and  all  the  manoeuvres  of  Pilate  to  save  Jesus,  which  we 
have  already  considered,  before  Pilate  was  colnpelled  to 
yield.  Is  it  possible  that  all  these  proceedings  only  lasted 
until  noon,  the  time  asserted  by  John  ?  Does  not  this 
eye-witness  stand  more  than  corroborated  by  the  facts  ? 
Can  any  mortal  give  the  preference  to  "  hear-says " 
placing  it  at  an  earlier  date  ? 

We  have  then  the  pretended  scourging  and  other 
delays  before  starting,  including  Pilate's  sending  for 
water,  and  washing  his  hands  of  the  blood  of  Jesus,  the 
procurement  of  the  cross,  and  of  a  guard.  We  have 
then  the  slow  march  on  foot  through  the  city  and  out  to 
the  adjacent  height  of  Calvary,  then  the  setting  of  the 
crosses  in  the  ground,  the  preparing  and  affixing  the 
sign-board  on  the  cross  of  Jesus,  the  disrobing  of  him 
for  execution,  etc.,  before  we  reach  the  point  of  actual 
crucifixion.  From  the  time  of  the  sentence  up  to  the 
time  of  fastening  the  prisoner  on  the  cross,  the  inter- 
vening events,  making  no  allowance  for  slight  accidental 
delays,  can  by  no  means  be  estimated  as  requiring  less 
than  about  two  hours.  Indeed  two  hours  seems  entirely 
too  short  a  time.  From  John's  account,  then,  backed 
by  the  resistless  force  of  the  facts,  we  cannot,  in  all  fair- 
ness, place  the  actual  crucifixion  at  an  earlier  hour  than 
two  o  clock  in  the  afternoon.  It  is  necessary  to  remark, 


THE    CRUCIFIXION.  533 

at  once,  .that  our  theory,  although  aided  and  made  a  for- 
tiori true  by  John's  account,  is  by  no  means  dependent 
upon  it,  since,  even  if  Mark's  absurd  mistake  were  true, 
it  would  still  apply  with  full  force. 

All  the  Gospels  claim  that  Jesus  expired  at  the 
"  ninth  hour  :  " — Chat  is,  at  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon. 
This  would  leave  but  about  one  hour  -in  which  he  lived 
and  suffered  on  the  cross.  If  too  much  time  has  been 
allowed  for  the  occurrences  subsequent  to  midday,  when 
he  was  sentenced,  the  excess,  of  course,  must  be  added 
to  this  hour  of  life  and  suffering.  The  time  at  which  he 
was  taken  down  from  the  cross  is  nowhere  stated,  but  is 
left  to  inference  from  the  facts  given.  Dr.  Stroud,  in 
view  of  all  the  facts,  says  that,  "  Between  the  time  of  his 
death  and  that  when  he  was  pierced  by  the  soldier,  the 
longest  interval  which  can  with  any  probability  be  as- 
signed is  two  hours"  He  continues  to  say  that  "  It 
was  probably  between  four  and  five  in  the  afternoon 
when  the  Roman  soldier  came  and  broke  the  legs  of  the 
two  malefactors  who  were  crucified  with  Jesus."  This 
would  fix  the  time  during  which  Jesus  remained  on  the 
cross  after  he  was  supposed  to  have  expired,  at  some- 
thing over  an  hour  ;  thus  making  his  entire  stay  on  the 
cross  something  over  two  hours ;  certainly  not  over  three 
hours  in  all ;  which,  as  we  shall  find,  was  the  actual 
time  asserted  by  one  of  the  early  Fathers  of  the  Church. 
And  when  we  reflect,  that  the  three  men  executed  had 
to  be  taken  down  and  disposed  of ;  that  Jesus  was  actu- 
ally taken  down  and  conveyed  to  the  sepulchre  of  Joseph 
of  Arimathea,  and  his  body  prepared  and  dressed  for 
burial,  and  all  before  sunset  or  six  o'clock,  we  cannot 


534  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

think  that  Dr.  Stroud  has  over-estimated  the  time  re- 
quired for  those  purposes.  Before  commenting  on  all 
this,  Let  us  see  how  these  three  hours  were  spent  by 
those  who  participated  in  the  proceedings. 


The  occurrences  recorded  of  the  crucifixion  exhibit, 
so  far  as  they  could  be  expected  to  exhibit,  evidences  of 
the  truth  of  our  theory ;  and  are  as  numerous,  also,  as 
could  be  expected  from  the  Gospels.  We  may  pass  by 
the  few  asserted  remarks  made  by  Jesus  in  answer  to 
the  persiflage  of  the  on-lookers,  as  but  little  concerning 
the  question  under  consideration.  They  were  but  few, 
and  are  of  more  than  questionable  reliability.  If  Jesus 
expressed  pity  for  the  ignorance  of  his  Jewish  persecu- 
tors, or  prayed  for  them,  it  was  highly  commendable,  but 
it  was  also  the  first  time  in  his  life  that  he  had  ever  given 
them  such  an  exhibition,  and  it  was  certainly  in  direct 
contradiction  of  his  entire  conduct  towards  them.  There 
has  probably  been  some  subsequent  embellishing  of  the 
record  at  this  point.  That  there  has  been  such  an  em- 
bellishment in  the  only  other  reply  of  Jesus,  his  worship- 
pers should  be  the  first  to  believe.  For  his  assurance  to 
the  "penitent  thief,"  that  he  should  sup  with  him  in  Par- 
adise that  very  nigJit  was  certainly  a  grave  mistake,  if 
we  are  to  credit  Christian  creeds  and  his  own  direct 
confession.  For  the  scriptures  and  creeds  tell  us  that 
he  first  "descended  into  hell;"  and  when  he  reappeared 
to  his  disciples  on  the  third  day  after  his  declaration  to 


THE    CRUCIFIXION.  535 

the  thief  on  the  cross,  he  himself  expressly  declared,  that 
he  had  not  ascended  to  his  Father,  up  to  that  time  ;  while 
the  question  still  was,  not  one  of  "  supping  in  Paradise," 
but  of  far  less  ambrosial  feasting ;  for  among  his  first 
questions  to  his  disciples  was — "  Have  ye  here  any 
meat  ?  And  they  gave  him  a  piece  of  broiled  fish,  and 
of  an  honeycomb."  And  even  many  weeks  after  that  he 
was  found  cooking  his  own  fish  on  the  shore  of  the  Sea 
of  Galilee.  So  that  there  must  have,  been  a  mistake 
about  this  matter,  somewhere.  The  thief  might  have 
supped  in  Paradise  alone,  but  not  with  Jesus. 

Pilate  himself,  it  seems,  wrote  the  inscription  for  the 
top  of  the  cross — "  This  is  the  King  of  the  Jews."  This 
was  felt  to  be  a  galling  insult  by  the  Jews,  and  the  chief 
priests  besought  him  to  alter  it  so  as  to  read  "  he  said  he 
was  King  of  the  Jews ; "  but  Pilate  refused  to  withdraw 
his  barbed  arrow,  and  sullenly  replied — "  What  I  have 
written  I  have  written."  They  might  tell  that  to  Caesar, 
if  they  liked:  Pilate  was  still  galled  and  determined,  and 
the  hour  for  conciliating  his  enemies  had  passed. 


It  appears  that  the  military  cordon  was  of  such 
dimensions  as  to  forbid  any  very  near  approach  by  the 
by-standers, — as  we  find  that  even  his  mother  and  female 
friends  were  compelled  to  stand  "  afar  off."  For  it  is 
impossible  to  believe  that  his  mother,  Mary  Magdalen, 
or  John  would  fail  to  approach  and  stand  by  him,  in  this 
hour  of  suffering,  as  closely  as  they  were  permitted. 
That  they,  alone,  should  have  stood  "  afar  off "  is  not 


536  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

credible.  They  were  near  enough,  as  others  were,  for 
the  voice  of  Jesus  to  reach  them.  Probably  some  forty 
or  fifty  feet  might  approximate  the  limit  of  approach. 


The  young  Galilean  appears  to  have  borne  his  suffer- 
ings for  about  an  hour  with  calmness  and  fortitude,  and 
to  have  maintained  the  utmost  outward  gravity  and  com- 
posure. As  three  o'clock  approached,  however,  the  con- 
tinuance in  the  one  painful  and  unrelieved  position  be- 
gan to  tell  severely  upon  his  powerful  and  elastic,  but 
exquisitely  sensitive  nervous  organization.  That  such  a 
nature  suffers  more  than  others  that  are  less  sensitive, 
under  like  conditions,  is  evident ;  and,  as  our  physician 
has  already  assured  us,  the  great  and  fatal  strain  of 
this  punishment  was  upon  the  nervous  system.  The 
scene  in  Gethsemane  gives  us  evidence  of  how  readily 
and  how  extremely  Jesus  could  surfer,  and  with  what 
elasticity  he  could  recover.  His  sensitive  organiza- 
tion was  strung  to  its  highest  pitch  to  bear  the  per- 
sistent and  accumulating  torture.  His  position,  com- 
paratively painless  at  first,  grew  continually  more  tor- 
turing. His  will  was  put  into  ever  higher  requisition 
to  control  and  sustain  his  physical  nature  under  the 
fiery  trial  which  was  driving  his  nerves  into  ever  higher 
restlessness,  wilder  agitation  and  threatened  revolt : 
— an  enforced  control  which  both  foreboded  and  pro- 
duced the  suddenness  of  the  disaster,  when  .it  could 
no  longer  be  maintained.  Nature,  so  determinedly  held 
in  a  defiant  resistance  to  an  onslaught  which  but  grew 
in  intensity  with  the  length  of  the  resistance,  would, 


THE    CRUCIFIXION.  537 

necessarily,  finally  compensate  itself  in  utter  demoraliza- 
tion. Such  a  nervous  organization  as  that  of  Jesus  suf- 
fers so  keenly  that,  when  held  by  the  will-power  with  an 
exhaustive  persistence,  its  recoil  is  very  great  and  its 
prostration  profound'  and  prolonged  ;  but  certainly  not 
fatal  upon  the  first  surrender.  That  the  very  first  yield- 
ing of  any  nervous  organization,  much  less  such  an 
elastic,  youthful  and  vigorous  organization  as  that  of 
Jesus,  to  the  gradual  torture  of  mere  nervous  irritation, 
should  be  fatal  to  life,  is  wholly  incredible. 

It  would  seem  that  the  forced  stoicism  of  Jesus,  and 
his  effort  to  keep  his  mind  clear  and  his  nerves  steady, 
had  borne  Jesus  up  until  near  three  in  the  afternoon, 
and  that  nature  then  began  to  grow  sick  under  its  pro- 
longed effort  and  its  ever-increasing  and  torturing  irrita- 
tion, and  to  give  evident  signs  of  flowing  back  upon 
itself  and  fainting  under  its  unrelieved  burden.  His 
nature,  like  all  highly  sensitive  ones,  had  much  of  the 
woman  in  it.  It  took  wild  fright  at  the  approach  of 
danger,  while  it  was  courageous  under  actual  suffering. 
It  would  inevitably  suffer  exquisitely,  and  faint  early 
and  long  and  often,  under  prolonged  torture.  He  might 
survive  the  sturdy  rogues  who  were  punished  with  him, 
but  the  successive  effects  of  the  torture  upon  him  and 
them,  respectively,  would  be  markedly  different.  His 
more  highly  wrought  sensitive  and  psychical  organiza- 
tion could  assume  a  stoicism  which  would  temporarily 
rival  the  results  of  the  comparative  insensibility  of  their 
coarser  natures,  but  it  would  only  be  assumed;  and  his 
more  exquisite  suffering  would  force  an  earlier  and  more 
complete  temporary  surrender.  On  the  other  hand,  his 


$38  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

flexible  and  elastic  nature  would  retain  its  recuperative 
powers  under  more  profound  and  prolonged  prostrations. 
Jesus  felt,  thus  early,  that  his  nervous  irritation  and  pro- 
gressive torture  was  hurrying  him  on  to  that  faintness 
and  sickness  which  his  will  could  have  no  power  to  con- 
trol, and  he  called  Out  that  he  "  thirsted."  Thus  far  he 
had  kept  clear-minded  and  self-possessed :  he  felt  that 
he  could  do  so  but  a  few  moments  longer.  He  had  re- 
fused the  "mercy  cup"  from  his  sympathizers  ;  he  now 
appealed  to  his  Roman  guard.  The  required  and  pre- 
pared drink  was  at  hand,  and  was  instantly  given  and  re- 
ceived without  question  : — a  drink  other  than  the  usual 
"  mercy  cup,"  and  one  which  seems  not  to  have  been  al- 
lowed to  the  other  sufferers,  and  which  was  ostensibly 
given  to  relieve  the  sufferings  of  the  prisoner,  at  his  own 
request,  after  his  punishment  had  commenced  ; — a  thing 
most  unusual,  if  not  wholly  without  warrant.  Certainly 
the  friends  of  the  prisoner  would  not,  in  ordinary  cases, 
be  allowed  to  thus  alleviate  the  very  intended  punish- 
ment of  the  condemned,  even  if  allowed  to  approach  them 
at  all.  Possibly,  if  not  probably,  the  person  who  in- 
stantly "  ran  and  filled  a  sponge  with  vinegar,"  was  Joseph 
of  Arimathea ;  being  within  the  lines  by  special  permis- 
sion, and  for  just  such  purposes.  Whoever  it  was,  they 
were  prepared  to  run  to  his  relief  upon  the  instant,  and 
had  provided  themselves  with  both  the  special  drink  and 
with  a  sponge  and  a  reed  or  rod  to  administer  it.  They 
understood  and  were  prepared  for  the  occasion.  The 
bystanders  supposed,  or  were  led  to  believe,  that  this 
unnamed  person  gave  him  "vinegar"  to  drink.  But, 
if  so,  What  had  been  put  in  the  vinegar  ?  Nothing  ? 
Possibly.  But  it  would  have  been  in  singular  conformity 


THE    CRUCIFIXION.  539 

with  the  facts,  and  with  the  manifested  purposes  of  those 
under  whose  control  he  then  was,  that  something  besides 
vinegar  should  have  been  provided  for  him.  Very  cer- 
tainly they  might  have  done  it :  and  the  results  were 
very  confirmatory  of  the  suggestion  that  such  a  provision 
was  made.  By  whose  order  had  this  drink  (even  of  vin- 
egar) been  prepared  and  brought  there  ?  We  are  told  in 
Smith's  Bible  Dictionary,  that  death  by  crucifixion  "  was 
at  last  the  result  of  gradual  benumbing  and  starvation  ;  " 
and  that  "before  the  nailing  or  binding  took  place,  a 
medicated  cup  was  given,  out  of  kindness,  to  confuse  the 
senses  and  deaden  the  pangs  of  the  sufferer,  usually  of 
wine  and  myrrh,  because  myrrh  was  sporific.  Our  Lord 
refused  it  that  his  senses  migh't  be  clear"  But  Who,  we 
repeat,  ordered  the  unusual  drink  which  was  furnished 
him  after  he  was  on  the  cross,  and  at  his  own  demand  ? 
It  could  not  have  been  prepared  or  brought  or  adminis- 
tered by  the  Centurion  or  guard  without  express  orders, 
nor  could  it  have  been  allowed  by  them  to  be  administered 
by  others  ;  since  the  very  object  of  the  guard's  remaining 
,with  the  sufferer  was  to  prevent  his  rescue  or  his  relief 
from  the  want  and  hunger  which  constituted  the  very 
severity  of  the  punishment  Even  as  simple  vinegar, 
the  supply  was  both  unusual  and  unlawful.  It  is  worthy 
of  special  notice,  also,  that  Jesus  should  have  refused  the 
legitimate  "  mercy  cup,"  and  then  have  called  for  aid  to 
which  he  had  no  right ;  and  that  he  evidently  and  con- 
fessedly refused  the  "  mercy-cup  "  to  keep  his  mind  clear 
as  long  as  possible.  It  would  be  well  to  note,  also, 
whether  the  drink  given  had  the  refreshing  and  reviving 
effect  natural  to  vinegar,  or  whether  it  had  the  precise 
opposite  effect. 


54O  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

The  time  intervening  between  the  administering  of 
the  drink  and  his  supposed  death  cannot  be  made  pre- 
cisely definite,  but  the  Gospel  accounts  leave  no  doubt 
that  he  almost  immediately — within  at  most  but  a  few 
minutes,  fell  into  that  state  which  was  claimed  to  be 
death.  He  was  already  in  that  almost  suffocating  and 
deathly  sickness  which  announces  the  approach  of  syn- 
cope, or  fainting  from  torture — that  point  at  which  man's 
conquered  nature  recoils,  and  the  heart  and  other  vital 
organs  seem  to  cease  to  struggle,  leaving  the  body  a 
pallid  and  ghastly  semblance  of  death.  As  Jesus  felt 
this  deathly  sickness  and  faintness  approaching,  he  cried 
with  a  loud  and  agonized  voice — "  My  God,  my  God,  why 
hast  thou  forsaken  me  ? "  '  And  John  tells  us  that,  after 
receiving  the  drink,  he  said—"  it  is  finished,"  and  that 
he  then  "  bowed  his  head  and  gave  up  the  ghost ; " 
showing  that,  instead  of  being  relieved  and  revived  by 
the  supposed  vinegar,  he  soon  drooped  into  insensibility 
under  its  influence ;  and  that  he  himself  did  not  expect 
it  to  revive  him,  since  he  declared  the  object  was  accom- 
plished so  soon  as  he  took  it,  and  bowed  his  head. 

At  this  point  the  scene  became  harrowing  rather 
than  interesting  to  the  Jews.  The  ghastly  and  silent 
spectacle  of  that  ashen  face  and  drooping  head  was  not 
an  attractive  sight  to  those  who  had  forced  them  there. 
Besides,  the  last  hours  of  the  "  preparation  day  "  were 
rapidly  passing  away,  and  the  necessities,  as  well  as  the 
inclination,  of  the  multitude  led  them  to  return  to  the 
city.  Accordingly,  Luke  tells  us  that,  at  this  point, 
"  all  the  people  that  came  together  to  see  that  sight,  behold- 
ing the  things  which  were  done,  smote  their  breasts, 


THE    CRUCIFIXION.  54! 

and  returned" — (xxiii.  48).  From  three  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,  when  Jesus  first  gave  way  and  was  supposed 
to  have  expired,  the  Centurion,  with  his  little  squad  of 
Roman  soldiers,  and  the  immediate  friends  of  Jesus, 
were  left  alone  on  that  solitary  mount,  outside  the  city, 
with  no  unfriendly  observers  and  no  prying  scrutinizers 
to  inspect  or  criticise  their  course  or  conduct.  From 
the  very  time  of  the  supposed  death,  the  favorers  and 
friends  of  Jesus  had  untrammelled  and  tmobserved  sway 
over  everything,  and  did  and  said  what  they  pleased. 
The  only  persons  who  can  be  inferred  to  have  remained, 
were  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  who  was  concerned  in  the 
matter  to  the  last,  and  the  little  clump  of  Galilean 
friends  who  "stood  afar  off" — John,  Mary  Magdalen, 
the  mother  of  Jesus,  etc. 

The  time  which  Jesus  would  appear  to  have  remained 
in  this  state  has  already  been  shown  to  have  been  about 
an  hour  and  a  half, — possibly  a  little  more  or  a  little 
less,  but  by  no  reasonable  supposition  beyond  two  hours. 
During  this  period  his  friend  Joseph  of  Arimathea  had 
gone  '<  boldly  unto  Pilate  and  craved*  the  body  of  Jesus, 
and  Pilate  marvelled  if  he  were  already  dead ;  and  call- 
ing unto  him  the  Centurion,  he  asked  him  whether  he 
had  been  any  while  dead.  And  when  he  knew  of  the 
Centurion,  he  gave  the  body  to  Joseph'*  This  account, 
taken  from  Mark,  is  substantially  that  of  the  other  sy- 
noptical Gospels,  and  ends  the  account  of  that  day's  pro- 
ceedings, save  the  statement  of  the  fact  of  the  deposit- 
ing of  Jesus  in  a  large  new  sepulchre  of  Joseph,  hewn  in 
the  side  of  a  rock.  Whatever  else  we  find  touching  the 
crucifixion  or  his  treatment  on  the  cross,  we  find  in 
John  alone.  And,  although  there  are  satisfactory  evi- 


542  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

dences  that  these  special  statements  of  John  were  after- 
thoughts, inserted  for  mythic  and  doctrinal  purposes,  we 
are  under  no  necessity  to  discard  them  ;  since  they  are 
by  no  means  dangerous  facts, — but  in  fact,  rather  serve 
than  injure  our  theory ; — although  they  prolong  and 
complicate  the  investigation. 

John  tells  us  that,  to  get  the  whole  matter  over  be- 
fore six  o'clock  in  the  evening  when  the'  sabbath  com- 
menced, they  despatched  the  two  thieves  by  breaking 
their  legs  ;  for,  up  to  this  time  even,  the  sturdy  rogues 
had  neither  fainted  nor  complained  ;  although  they  had 
received  neither  relief  nor  attention.  -But  John  says 
that,  "  when  they  came  to  Jesus,  and  saw  that  he  was 
dead  already,  they  broke  not  his  legs  ;  but  one  of  the 
soldiers  with  a  spear  pierced  his  side,  and  forthwith 
came  there  out  blood  and  water."  After  this  he  was 
delivered  into  the  hands  of  his  wealthy  friend  Joseph,  to 
be  deposited  in  his  newly-hewn  sepulchre,  and  he  was 
no  more  seen  by  the  public,  nor  by  his  disciples,  until  he 
secretly  appeared  to  his  followers  on  the  morning  after 
the  sabbath.  To  prevent  long  repetitions  of  the  events 
or  narrations  which  will  claim  our  attention  subsequent 
to  his  removal  from  the  cross,  they  will  be  considered 
as  they  are  referred  to  in  the  investigations  and  argu- 
ments in  the  next  chapter. 


WAS    HE    DEAD.'  543 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

WAS    HE    DEAD  ? 

WE  have  followed  Jesus  through  his  arrest,  trial  and 
punishment,  and  into  the  tomb  of  Joseph  of  Arimathea. 
And,  although  there  are  subsequent  evidences  which  bear 
upon  the  main  question  with  overwhelming  force,  we 
have  reached  a  point  at  which  it  is  proper  to  put,  and  to 
partially  argue,  the  main  question, — namely  :  Was  Jesus 
dead  beyond  the  possibility  of  recovery  by  natural  means 
and  agencies  when  he  was  taken  from  the  cross  ?  From 
this  point  we  may  properly  look  back  upon  the  entire 
course  of  facts,  and  ask  ourselves  the  question — 
Have  we  reason  to  expect  that  this  man  will  revive,  or 
can  be  revived,  from  the  evidences  touching  the  question 
occurring  prior  to,  and  during,  his  punishment  on  the 
cross  ?  If  we  shall  have  found  such  evidences,  it  will 
then  remain  for  us  to  examine  and  determine  whether 
there  are  evidences  of  his  actually  having  so  revived  by 
natural  means,  to  be  found  in  the  subsequent  facts  and 
in  the  conduct  and  language  of  the  persons  concerned. 


544  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

Antecedent  evidence  of  such  a  fact  as  the  one  we  are 
investigating,  is  necessarily  composed  of  facts  showing 
adequate  motives  and  an  intention  to  save  the  accused 
party  ;  of  facts  showing  that  the  parties  concerned  had 
sufficient  opportunities,  means  and  power  to  effectuate 
their  purposes  under  the  actual  circumstances  of  the 
case ;  and  the  facts  tending  to  prove  that  they  were 
actually  proceeding  in  a  manner  calculated  to  effect  their 
purpose  of  saving  the  accused,  and  that  what  they  actually 
did  was  calculated  to  result  in  continued  life,  and  not  in  . 
death.  If  these  evidences  of  an  intention  and  determina- 
tion to  save,  and  of  adequate  opportunities,  means  and 
power  to  save,  and  of  adequate  acts  to  hav,e  resulted  in 
actually  saving  the  accused  and  condemned  party  be 
satisfactory,  then  the  presumption  is  direct  and  violent 
that  he  was  saved  ;  and,  when  followed  by  proof  of  his 
being  known  to  have  been  living  afterwards,  this  proof 
becomes  conclusive.  The  consistency  of  all  the  real 
facts  with  this  presumption  will  make  it  almost  resistless, 
even  without  this  latter  fact,  and  all  the  more  resistless 
as  those  concurring  facts  are  singular  or  exceptional  in 
their  nature,  and  could,  with  no  probability,  be  supposed 
to  unite  in  congruity  and  conformity  with  the  theory 
upon  which  the  presumption  is  based  unless  that  theory 
and  presumption  were  true.  It  is  manifest,  also,  that 
the  difficulty  or  impossibility  of  our  reconciling  the 
whole  or  any  part  of  the  facts  with  any  other  supposi- 
tion and  conclusion  than  our  own  will  greatly  add  to 
the  strength  of  our  own. 


WAS    HE    DEAD  ?  545 

Looking  back  over  the  ground  we  have  past,  Have  we 
not  already  shown  sufficient  proofs  and  reasons  to  sustain 
or  establish  the  presumption  against  actual  and  final 
death  ?  We  have  seen  that  Jesus  was  not  only  as  human 
in  the  face  of  this  last  danger  as  he  had  ever  been,  but 
that  he  proved  himself  more  singularly  frail  than  we  had 
hitherto  found  him,  and  demonstrated,  throughout,  the 
possession  of  an  organization  and  nature  admirably 
capable  of  performing  the  role  assigned  to  him  by  our 
theory.  We  find  a  succession  of  rare  and  singular  facts 
occurring  in  connection  with  his  betrayal,  hiding  and 
arrest,  which  are  unaccounted  for  and  inexplicable  by 
the  Christian  theory,  but  which  at  once  explain  each 
other  and  naturally  and  consistently  unite  and  interlink 
themselves  into  a  single  and  consecutive  chain  of  events 
which  are  in  conformity  with  our  conception  of  the 
motives,  characters  and  conduct  of  the  parties  concerned, 
and  which  point  to,  and,  at  the  same  time,  are  appro- 
priated and  explained  by,  our  theory  of  the  whole  facts. 
We  have  had  the  clearest  evidence  that  Jesus  had 
efficient  friends  or  advocates  about  tj^e  centres  of  power 
in  Jerusalem,  and  friendly  coadjutors  in  the  Sanhedrim 
itself.  We  have  seen  that,  through  means  of  these 
friends,  sympathizers  and  coadjutors,  he  was  promptly, 
though  secretly,  advised  of  the  intentions  and  movements 
of  his  enemies — of  both  his  intended  betrayal  and  of  his 
actual  betrayal  and  approaching  arrest ;  and  was  com. 
forted  and  encouraged,  manifestly,  by  their  assurances  of 
powerful  and  faithful  support.  We  have  seen  that  the 
personal  situations,  interests  and  safety  of  the  most 
powerful  coadjutors  and  advocates  of  Jesus,  both  Jewish 
and  Roman,  controlled  or  influenced  the  times  and 

35 


54-6  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

modes  of  their  advocacy  and  assistance  of  him,  but  we 
find,  also,  that  these  considerations  neither  deterred  them 
from  their  purpose  nor  slackened  their  energies'  or  action 
in  furtherance  of  it.  For  we  find  both  the  open  and 
the  unsuspected  evidences  of  their  presence,  purpose  and 
efficiency,  from  first  to  last.  We  find  that,  from  the 
situation  of  the  parties,  much  of  what  they  did  would 
necessarily  be  kept  strictly  secret  from  the  public,  but 
that  they  had  every  opportunity  for  secret  conferences  and 
co-operations,  and  that  they  had  the  will,  the  means  and 
the  facilities  for  executing  their  purposes.  We  have 
seen  the  evidences  of  their  open  support  before  the 
Sanhedrim,  and  upon  his  trial,  and  in  the  various 
special,  significant,  and  evidently  pre-determined  favors 
to  Jesus  in  the  process  of  executing  his  sentence  and  in 
disposing  of  his  body.  We  constantly  find  the  evidences 
of  pre-concerted  arrangements  and  preparations  and  of 
concert  of  action  between  these  Roman  and  Jewish 
aiders  of  Jesus.  We  find  that  a  special  drink,  together 
with  singular  but  apt  means  of  administering  it,  were 
provided  especially  for  Jesus,  to  be  given  to  him  after  his 
punishment  had  commenced  and  had  proceeded  to  the 
production  of  certain  results,  and  that  it  was  then 
administered  to  him,  with  such  marked  alacrity  as  to 
indicate  both  favor  and  design.  We  find  evidence  that 
Jesus  was  apprised  of  these  designs  and  efforts,  for 
he  not  only  refused  the  relief  from  the  legitimate  "mercy 
cup "  which  was  tendered  him,  in  dVder  to  retain  his 
reason  and  self-control,  but  he  gave  a  warning  cry  for 
help,  as  he  approached  the  fainting  point,  when  he  had. 
no  legitimate  right  to  expect  such  help  or  relief ;  and> 
without  a  word,  partook  of  the  drink  prepared  for  him. 


WAS    HE    DEAD  ?  547 

We  find  that  the  centurion  who  had  immediate  control 
of  the  proceedings,  subject  to  the  orders  of  Pilate,  was 
evidently  advised  of  the  purpose  to  save  the  prisoner,  as 
appears  from  the  whole  course  of  proceedings  and  his 
treatment  of  Jesus,  as  well  as  from  the  fact  that  he  left 
his  post  and  went  with  Joseph  of  Arimathea  to  announce 
the  condition  of  Jesus  and  secure  his  delivery  to  Joseph  : 
for  the  account  in  Mark  clearly  shows  that  he  was  pres- 
ent or  at  hand  when  Pilate  called  him,  and  had  not  to  be 
sent  for  to  Calvary.  The  facts,  even  thus  far,  are  conclu- 
sive as  to  the  desire  and  willingness  both  to  serve  and  save 
him  as  far  as  possible,  and  are  violently  presumptive  of 
the  pre-concert,  determination  and  concerted  effort  to  save 
him  by  the  powerful  Jewish  and  Roman  friends  already 
indicated.  It  was  a  high  duty,  indeed,  under  the  then 
existing  state  of  things,  not  only  that  his  few  powerful, 
but  secret  encouragers  and  coadjutors  in  the  Jewish 
government  should  do  their  utmost  to  save  him  from  the 
penalties  of  acts  which  they  had  secretly  encouraged, 
but  that  Pilate  should  use  every  artifice  and  power  he 
was  master  of  to  defeat  a  humiliating  and  coerced 
judgment  which  he  would  never  have  rendered,  or  would 
have  openly  defied,  if  he  had  not  been  compelled  and 
restrained  by  an  unjust  personal  advantage  held  over 
him  by  the  common  enemy. 

We  have  seen,  also,  that  Pilate's  power  to  save  was 
only  limited  by  the  necessity  of  such  secrecy  as  would 
prevent  a  successful  charge  of  complicity  in  his  escape. 
And  we  have  seen,  not  only  that  a  most  propitious  con- 
currence of  circumstances  aided  in  saving  the  accused, 
and  encouraged  the  hope  and  effort  to  save  him,  but  also 


54-8  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

furnished  the  most  admirable  opportunities  for  secrecy 
when  secrecy  was  most  needed;  since  the  necessary 
opportunities  were  thereby  furnished  for  consultation  and 
pre-arrangement,  and,  when  the  hour  came  for  despatch- 
ing the  prisoners,  caused  none  to  be  present  to  watch  or 
criticise  their  movements  or  to  observe  the  evidences  as 
to  the  condition  of  Jesus  when  taken  from  the  cross. 
From  the  very  time  Jesus  gave  way  they  had  had  neither 
obstruction  nor  observation  to  fear,  and  unless  Jesus 
actually  died  at  three  o'clock,  there  was  really  nothing  to 
fear  for  his  safety. 

With  such  an  array  of  concurring  facts  and  probabil- 
ities before  us,  without  a  single  adverse  fact,  we  must  be 
prepared  to  find,  that  Jesus  was  not  dead  when  taken 
from  the  cross,  unless  the  crucifixion  itself  actually  killed 
him  by  the  "  ninth  hour  "  in  spite  of  them ;  and  thus 
defeated  the  hopes  and  purposes  of  his  friends  and  sup- 
porters. 


We  havef'then,  to  inquire  whether  the  facts  of  the 
crucifixion,  as  a  whole,  occurring  before  or  at  the  "  ninth 
hour,"  justified  others  then,  or  can  now  justify  us,  in  af- 
firming the  death  of  Jesus  at  that  hour.  In  determining 
that  question,  we  may  first  consider  whether  there  was 
anything  peculiar  in  the  case  of  Jesus  which  would  take 
it  out  of  the  ordinary  routine  in  such  cases.  To  this 
there  must  certainly  be  an  affirmative  reply.  But  it  is 
also  equally  certain  that  such  exceptional  or  unusual 


WAS    HE    DEAD  ?  549 

facts  and  influences  were  all  opposed  to  the  supposition 
of  his  death.     We  have  seen  that  Jesus  was  in  good 
bodily  health  and  in  good  mental  and  bodily  condition 
when  he  went  upon  the  cross,  and  that  the  treatment 
which  he  had  had  directly  tended  to  insure  that  condition. 
He  was,  naturally,  a  supple,  vigorous  and  healthy  man, 
reared  to  a  healthy  trade,  and  had  led  a  life  calculated  to 
insure  physical  health  and  vigor.     He  was  about  thirty- 
three  years  of  age — in  the  very  prime  of  his  powers  of 
endurance  and  vitality.     So  far  as   we  know,   or  have 
reason  to  believe,  there  was  nothing  fo  give  the  slightest 
countenance  to  the  belief  that  he  would  not  resist  death 
on  the  cross  as  long  as  the  best ;  although,  as  we  have 
seen,  there  were  reasons  for  expecting  that  he  would 
temporarily  give  way  under  the  torture  earlier  and  per- 
haps oftener  than  more  phlegmatic  natures, — but  only  to 
recover  oftener  and  from  more  extreme  prostrations.     It 
would  scarcely  be  too  much  to  say,  that  no  man  ever  went 
upon  the  cross  with  a  greater  prospect  of  resisting  death 
than  did  Jesus,  with   his   youth,  health    and  abundant 
vitality,  and  it  is  certainly  not  too  much  to  say,  that  no 
man  was  ever  more  favored  by  his  executioners,  either 
before  or  after  he  went  upon  the  cross.     Whatever  al- 
lowance is  to  be  made,  therefore,  for  age,  vigor,  health, 
condition  and  treatment,  must  all  be  made  in  favor  of  a 
prolonged  endurance  of  his  punishment. 

Nor  are  we  to  presume  anything  in  favor  of  death  at 
the  "  ninth  hour  "  from  the  fact  that  the  Roman  Cen- 
turion gave  currency  to  that  idea, — even  by  pretending 
to  think  he  had  died  miraculously  as  the  Son  of  God. 
Because,  firstly,  if  we  are  right  as  to  Pilate's  purposes,  it 


55O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

was  precisely  the  idea  which  it  was  their  purpose  to 
originate  and  encourage.  That  he  should  have  gone  to 
report  the  matter  to  Pilate,  does  not  at  all  conflict  with 
this  view  ;  as  it  was  a  mere  precaution  taken  by  Pilate 
to  avoid  the  suspicion  which  would  or  might  attach  to 
his  order  to  deliver  the  body  to  his  friends,  at  their  re- 
quest, after  a  punishment  so  unprecedentedly  short,  and 
without  further  evidence  of  his  death  or  ordering  him  to 
be  despatched  to  make  the  matter  sure.  Knowing  all 
this,  the  Centurion  was  but  carrying  out  his  master's 
views  and  instructions  and  the  wishes  of  Joseph  of  Ari- 
mathea,  in  officially  confirming  the  fact  of  death  at  the 
"  ninth  hour."  Secondly,  the  Centurion  was  not  com- 
petent to  decide  upon  the  difference  between  the  actual 
condition  of  Jesus  and  that  of  death,  unless  he  knew  his 
condition  to  be  a  designed  one  or  not  that  of  death.  He 
was  incompetent  to  determine  from  the  appearances. 
For,  be  it  remembered,  that  there  is  neither  evidence 
nor  hint  that  the  Centurion  or  any  other  person  ever 
even  felt  whether  his  pulse  or  heart  continued  to  beat  or 
whether  there  might  not  still  have  been  even  slight 
breathing.  So  far  as  the  record  goes,  no  person  either 
sought,  or  offered  to  seek,  for  any  evidence  of  his  death 
further  than  such  as  could  be  acquired  by  merely  look- 
ing at  him.  And,  from  such  evidence,  no  one  could  de- 
termine it, — not  even  a  physician.  -The  whole  course  of 
the  Centurion  shows  that  there  was  no  desire  or  inten- 
tion to  have  the  matter  tested.  Had  he  seen  even  clear 
evidence  of  his  being  alive, — seen  him  breathe  or  move, 
— he  would  have  ignored  it.  And  he  might  have  actually 
seen  many  such  evidences  which  were  imperceptible  to 
those  "  afar  off." 


WAS    HE    DEAD  ?  551 

Still  less  are  we  to  infer  anything  in  favor  of  death 
because  the  people  left  after  the  scene  at  the  "  ninth 
hour,"  nor  because  they  might  have  actually  supposed 
that  he  had  died.  For  it  was  not  only  a  matter  of  no  mo- 
ment, even  to  his  persecutors,  as  they  supposed  that  he 
certainly  would  be  despatched  or  die  in  some  form  before 
the  matter  was  through  with,  but  the  people  had  far  less 
opportunity  for  judging  of  the  fact  of  death  than  the 
Centurion  and  quite  as  little  capacity  for  it.  Indeed,  the 
people  neither  had,  nor  sought,  the  opportunity  of  test- 
ing or  the  means  of  judging  the  fact  of  death.  We 
know  not  even  what  they  actually  thought  as  to  what 
had  really  occurred  at  the  time  in  question.  We  only 
know,  that  they  left  after  witnessing  this  first  round  in 
the  conflict  with  Agony,  and  that  they  had  sufficient 
reason  for  going,  even  if  they  had  not  supposed  him  to 
be  dead.  Nor  would  their  supposition  of  his  death  be 
the  slightest  evidence  of  that  fact,  under  the  circum- 
stances. To  tell  the  difference  between  a  fainting  from 
torture  which  is  fatal,  and  one  which  is  not  fatal,  is  a 
matter  of  professional  skill,  and  one  which  requires  the 
minutest  examinations  and  the  most  careful  and  saga- 
cious methods  and  tests :  and,  even  then,  the  most  ex- 
perienced physicians  may  be  unable  to  detect  the  pres- 
ence of  vitality  where  it  actually  exists.  The  difficulty 
of  determining  the  fact  of  death  is  recognized  by  all 
physicians,  even  in  our  day,  when  physiological  knowl- 
edge and  medical  skill  have  reached  a  far  higher  point  of 
perfection  than  in  the  days  of  Jesus.  There  are  condi- 
tions of  the  human  body  produced  by  a  number  of 
causes,  which  so  resemble  death  that  the  most  intelligent 
physicians  are  mistaken  or  disagree  upon  the  question 


552  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

of  death,  after  very  careful  examinations  and  tests.  That 
ordinary  observers  should  be  mistaken  as  to  the  presence 
of  death  is  neither  singular  nor  of  rare  occurrence  ;  but, 
on  the  contrary,  is  of  alarmingly  frequent  occurrence. 
The  number  of  persons  who  have  been  even  buried  alive 
and  who  revived  afterwards  is  much  greater  than  is  gen- 
erally supposed.  Besides  the  number  who  revive  before 
burial  after  being  supposed  dead,  and  the  fewer  and  more 
fortunate  cases  in  which  persons  have  been  accidentally 
saved  from  vaults  and  tombs,  it  has  been  found  by  those 
engaged  in  removing  grave-yards,  that  the  number  of 
bodies  and  skeletons  which  furnished  proofs  of  survival 
after  burial  is  quite  appalling.  The  number  who  sur- 
vive after  being  left  for  dead  on  the  battle-field,  is  quite 
considerable.  Cases  of  survival  where  persons  have 
been  legally  executed,  would,  of  course,  present  the 
strongest  considerations  for  concealment,  since  an  ex- 
posure would  only  re-endanger  the  life  of  the  unfortu- 
nate, and  bring  trouble  upon  the  officers  and  "  resurrec- 
tionists." Our  sheriffs  have  ceased  to  trust  to  their  own 
skill  in  determining  death  by  hanging,  and  call  upon  ex- 
perts to  decide  for  them  ;  recognizing  their  own  incapa- 
city to  determine  so  difficult  a  question.  Notwithstand- 
ing the  reasons  for  concealment,  however,  it  is  known 
that  many  persons  have  survived  legal  executions.  Cru- 
cifixion, as  Dr.  Stroud  informs  us^  has  furnished  its  ex- 
amples of  revival  after  the  persons  have  been  supposed 
to  be  dead,  and  taken  from  the  cross.  It  is  manifest 
that  the  chances  of  such  survivals  are  far  greater  in 
cases  of  the  supposed  death  of  vigorous  and  healthy 
persons,  such  as  soldiers  and  convicts,  whose  vital  capa- 
cities have  been  overcome  by  the  punishment  rather 


WAS    HE    DEAD?  553 

than  worn  out  by  previous  inflammatory  or  chronic  dis- 
eases. In  cases  of  death  by  execution  or  on  the  battle- 
field, also,  the  burials  are  far  more  hasty  and  reckless 
than  in  ordinary  cases,  and  the  chances  of  knowing  the 
numbers  who  revive  after  supposed  death,  therefore,  is 
much  lessened  in  such  cases.  Both  from  reason  and 
experience  it  may  be  asserted  that,  in  no  case,  perhaps, 
is  ordinary  observation  so  likely  to  mislead  unprofes- 
sional witnesses  as  in  those  where  healthy  persons  are 
subjected  to  tortures  which  overcome  nature  and  directly 
tend  to  produce  fainting  or  swooning.  The  results  which 
are  witnessed  in  such  scenes  are  greatly  calculated  to 
mislead  all  ordinary  observers,  and  defy  the  judgment 
and  determination  of  all  ordinary  observation.  The  un- 
supported assertions  or  notions  of  such  witnesses,  under 
such  circumstances,  are  comparatively,  if  not  wholly, 
worthless. 

It  is  but  fairly  reasonable  to  say,  then,  that,  at  the 
time  Jesus  first  gave  way  under  his  torture,  and  at  which 
he  is  asserted  to  have  died,  there  is  no  evidence,  worth 
mentioning,  that  he  actually  did  die,  except  the  pre- 
sumption to  be  derived  from  the  mere  amount  and  char- 
acter of  the  punishment  he  had  received.  There  having 
been  nothing  tending  to  show  death  in  the  manifesta- 
tions themselves,  and  the  conduct  and  notions  of  the 
officers  and  by-standers  furnishing  no  valid  evidence, 
under  the  circumstances, — those  who  sustain  the  Gospel 
assertions  that  he  died  at  that  time,  have  no  other  ra- 
tional evidence  than  the  presumption  arising  from  the 
natural  effect  of  the  punishment  received,  to  sustain  their 
belief.  Let  us,  then,  consider  the  value  of  this  evidence. 


554  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

As  the  entire  field  of  conjecture  has  been  occupied 
in  attempting  to  account  for  the  unaccountable  (because 
unreal}  death  of  Jesus  on  the  cross,  it  is  important  that 
we  should  briefly  review  them  all,  and  estimate  their 
several  values.  In  doing  this,  we  will  commence  with 
the  most  natural  suggestion, — and  the  one  asserted  and 
relied  upon  in  the  New  Testament,  namely  :  that  he  died 
by  the  pains  and  exhaustion  of  crucifixion — that  he  was 
punished  to  death. 

That  multitudinous  class  of  people  who  accept  their 
opinions  "  ready-made,"  and  pass  through  life  without 
ever  attempting  to  investigate  the  basis  of  their  inher- 
ited faiths,  will  be  startled  by  the  bare  questioning  of 
this  long-assumed  and  gospel  conclusion.  But  they  will 
be  still  more  startled  when  they  are  told  that  their  belief 
is  wholly  incompatible  with  the  facts  as  narrated  in  the 
Gospels  themselves,  and,  also,  that  the  most  learned  and 
sagacious  Christian  fathers,  ancient  and  modern,  have 
been  driven;  in  the  very  teeth  of  the  apostolic  assertions, 
to  admit  that  Jesus  did  not  die  from  the  sufferings  of 
crucifixion,  and  to  seek,  at  random,  over  the  field  of  con- 
jecture for  other  possible  causes  of  death.  Let  us  again 
turn  to  the  pages  of  the  learned  Christian  physician,  Dr. 
Stroud,  for  his  own  opinion  and  those  of  the  learned  and 
pious  authors  from  whom  he  so  industriously  quotes. 

Dr.  Stroud  says  that,  "  Although  the  matter  has 
never  yet  been  thoroughly  investigated,  it  is  interesting 
to  observe  that  the  principal  commentators  on  Scripture, 
both  ancient  and  modern,  have  either  openly  or  tacitly 
adopted  the  negative  conclusion  here  taken  [namely  :  that 


WAS    HE    DEAD  ?  555 

Jesus  did  not  die  by  crucifixion],  and  that  many  of  them 
have  even  suggested  additional  causes,  by  which,  in  con- 
junction with  crucifixion,  the  Saviour's  death  might,  in 
their  opinion,  have  been  induced.  These  causes  have 
been  proposed  under  various  modifications  which  are  all 
reducible  to  three,  namely :  supernatural  agency,  the 
wound  inflicted  by  the  soldier's  spear,  or  an  unusual 
degree  of  weakness — original  or  acquired.  It  will  be 
the  object  of  the  following  remarks  to  show  that  neither 
of  these  explanations  is  admissible,  all  of  them  being  at 
•variance  with  well  known  facts,  and  that  another  is 
therefore  absolutely  requisite.  In  the  early  times  of 
Christianity,  not  long  after  its  apostolic  period,  and 
when  pretensions  to  miraculous  power  were  still  made 
and  credited,  it  is  by  no  means  wonderful  that  the  death 
of  Christ  should  have  been  ascribed  to  supernatural  in- 
fluences, and  this  is,  accordingly,  the  solution  adopted  by 
almost  all  the  ancient  Christian  writers  who  have  con- 
sidered the  subject.  The  opinion  of  Turtullian  is  thus 
briefly  stated  :  '  [Christ]  when  crucified  spontaneously 
dismissed  his  spirit  with  a  word,  thus  preventing  the  office 
of  the  executioner?  That  of  Origen  is  more  full.  '  Since,' 
says  he,  *4hose  crucified  persons  who  were  not  stabbed 
surfer  greater  torment,  and  survive  in  great  pain,  some- 
times the  whole  of  the  following  night  and  even  the 
next  day ;  and  since  Jesus  was  not  stabbed,  and  his  ene- 
mies hoped  that  by  his  hanging  long  on  the  cross  he 
would  suffer  the  greater  torment,  he  prayed  the  Father 
and  was  heard,  and  as  soon  as  he  had  called  was  taken 
to  the  Father ;  or  else/ as  one  having  power  to  lay  down 
his  life,  he  laid  it  down  when  he  chose.  This  prodigy 
astonished  the  Centurion,  who  said,  '  Truly  this  man  was 


JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

the  Son  of  God.'  For  it  was  a  miracle  that  he  who 
should  otherwise  perhaps  have  survived  two  days  on  the 
cross  according  to  the  custom  of  those  who  are  crucified 
but  not  stabbed,  should  have  been  taken  up  after  tJiree 
hours,  so  that  his  death  seems  to  have  happened  by  the 
favor  of  God,  and  rather  through  the  merit  of  his  own 
prayer  than  through  the  violence  of  the  cross.'  Jerome 
remarks — '  In  the  first  place  it  must  be  declared  that, 
for  Jesus  to  lay  down  his  life  where  he  chose,  and  to 
take  it  up  again,  was  an  act  of  divine  power.'  *  *  * 
Cyprian  follows  in  the  same  track — '  That  the  Jewish 
rulers  would  deliver  Christ  to  Pontius  Pilate  to  be  cruci- 
fied, he  had  himself  predicted,  and  the  testimony  of  all 
the  prophets  had  also  previously  declared  that  it  was 
necessary  for  him  to  suffer,  not  that  he  mighty^/,  but 
conquer  death,  and  after  he  had  suffered,  to  return  to 
Heaven,  that  he  might  display  the  power  of  his  divine 
majesty.  The  course  of  events  correspond  to  this  expec- 
tation ;  for  when  he  was  crucified  he  dismissed  his  spirit 
of  his  own  accord,  preventing  the  office  of  the  executioner, 
and  also  of  his  own  accord  rose  from  the  dead  on  the 
third  day.'  The  opinion  of  Theophylact  is  cited  to  the 
same  effect.  John  Calvin  is  also  quoted  as  follows  : — 
'  The  circumstance  that  after  breaking  the  legs  of  the 
two  malefactors  the  soldier  found  Christ  dead,  and  there- 
fore did  not  assail  his  body,  shows  an  extraordinary  oper- 
ation of  divine  providence.  Profane  persons  may  indeed 
say,  that  it  is  natural  for  one  man  to  die  sooner  than 
another ;  but  whoever  examines  the  whole  series  of  the 
narrative  will  be  compelled  to  ascribe  the  exemption  of 
Christ  from  the  breaking  of  the  legs,  by  a  death  beyond  all 
exceptions  rapid,  to  the  secret  councils  of  God?  Lightfoot 


WAS    HE    DEAD  ?  557 

also  advances  the  doctrine  that  the  death  of  Jesus  was 
not  the  result  of  punishment,  but  a  voluntary  surrender 
of  life.  Bishop  Taylor,  also,  claims  that  '  he  laid  down 
his  life  voluntarily.'  Doctor  Adam  Clark,  following  in 
the  same  strain,  says  :  '  He  himself  willingly  gave  up 
that  life  which  it  was  impossible  for  man  to  take  away'  " 
Other  grave  authorities  are  quoted  by  Dr.  Stroud,  but 
their  reproduction  is  deemed  a  work  of  supererogation. 
The  Doctor  himself  continues  to  say  :  "  From  the  con- 
currence of  so  many  learned  authors  in  ascribing  the 
death  of  Jesus  to  supernatural  agency,  one  advantage 
however  results,  namely,  the  acknowledgment  thereby 
made,  that  in  their  opinion  this  solemn  event  cannot  be 
satisfactorily  explained  by  any  other  cause, — neither  by 
the  principal,  nor  by  the  accessory  sufferings  of  cruci- 
fixion,— nor  by  any  extraordinary  degree  of  weakness, 
original  or  acquired, — nor  by  the  wound  inflicted  by  the 
soldier's  spear,  etc." 

The  learned  and  pious  physician  does  not  confine  us 
to  the  opinions  of  theologians,  but  gives  us  the  opinions 
of  other  learned  physicians  who,  like  himself,  had  given 
their  attention  to  this  subject.  Sir  James  Y.  Simpson, 
one  of  the  ablest  physicians  of  modern  times,  in  a  letter 
reproduced  in  Dr.  Stroud's  work,  gives  his  views  of  the 
matter  in  the  following  terms  :  "  His  death  was  not  the 
result  of  crucifixion  ;  for,  i.  The  period  was  too  short ;  a 
person  in  the  prime  of  life,  as  Christ  was,  not  dying 
from  this  mode  of  punishment  in  six  /wurs  as  he  did,  but 
usually  surviving  till  the  second  or  third  day,  or  even 
longer.  2.  The  attendant  phenomena,  at  the  time  of 
actual  deatlj,  were  different  from  those  of  crucifixion. 


558  JESUS    AND    RELGION. 

The  crucified  died,  as  is  well  known,  under  a  lingering 
process  of  gradual  exhaustion,  weakness  andfaintness. 
On  the  contrary,  Christ  cried  with  a  loud  voice  and  spoke 
once  and  again, — all  apparently  within  a  few  minutes  of 
his  dissolution. 

"  II.  No  known  injury,  resion,  or  disease  of  the  brain, 
lungs,,  or  other  vital  organs  could,  I  believe,  account  u>r 
such  a  sudden  termination  of  his  sufferings  in  death,  ex- 
cept (i)  arrestment  of  the  action  of  the  heart  \>y  fatal 
fainting  or  Syncope ;  or  (2)  rupture  of  the  walls  of  the 
heart,  or  large  vessels  issuing  from  it."  This  opinion,  from 
such  unquestionably  high  authority,  would  seem  to  be 
almost  conclusive  as  to  what  Jesus  could,  or  could  not, 
have  died  from  ;  provided  always,  that  he  did  actually  die 
at  the  time  to  which  he  alludes.  Of  course,  this  point 
the  doctor  dared  not  question ;  but,  accepting  as  a  fact 
that  he  was  actually  dead,  he  gives  us  the  only  two 
sources  from  which  he  thinks  such  a  death  could  possibly 
have  occurred,  namely  :  fatal  fainting  and  rupture  of  the 
heart  or  its  immediate  connections.  That  is  to  say,  that, 
if  Jesus  did  die  at  all,  we  are  reduced  to  two  possible 
causes  for  that  death,  namely :  heart-rupture,  which  is  a 
result  not  at  all  peculiar  to  this  mode  of  punishment,  and 
is  also  exclusively  the  result  of  exertions  or  emotions 
which  in  fact  did  not  exist  in  this  case ;  and  secondly,  to 
fainting,  which  is  an  ordinary  and  natural  result  of  cru- 
cifixion, which  may  be,  but  rarely  w,  fatal.  When  we 
reach  the  proper  stage  of  our  examinations,  we  will  re- 
member these  two  sole  possibilities,  and  take  occasion  to 
compare  their  probabilities  in  this  case,  and  shall  also 
endeavor  to  show,  not  only  that  the  overwhelming  prc- 


WAS    HE    DEAD  ?  559 

sumption  is  in  favor  of  fainting,  but  that  there  is  an 
equally  potent  presumption  that  the  fainting  was  not 
JataL  Sir  James'  objections  to  fainting  neither  apply, 
nor  were  intended  to  apply,  to  fainting  which  is  not 
fatal.  A  number  of  physicians  agree  upon  the  main 
point,  namely  :  that  he  did  not  die  from  the  sufferings  of 
crucifixion  ;  but  they  differ  both  as  to  the  time  and 
mode  of  his  death.  The  learned  Griiners,  father  and 
son,  among  others,  contend  that  he  did  not  die  from 
crucifixion,  and,  moreover,  that  he  clearly  was  not  dead 
when  the  soldier  pierced  him  with  his  spear  just  before 
he  was  taken  from  the  cross,  but  that  he  was  in  a  faint 
and  languid  condition  which  allowed  the  heart  to  act 
feebly.  In  their  opinion  the  spear  was  thrust  into  a 
living  man,  and  that  this  thrust  killed  him,  as  they  sup- 
pose he  must  have  been  killed  somehow.  So  that  we 
have  this  additional,  but  more  direct  support  to  the  idea 
that  Jesus  merely  fainted  at  the  ninth  hour.  If,  there- 
fore, this  spear  thrust  should  be  a  mistake  or  an  after- 
thought, or  was  of  a  kind  not  to  produce  death,  or  to 
produce  such  a  death  as  must  have  occurred,  if  at  all, 
from  the  actual  manifestations, — that  is,  instant  death 
without  a  struggle  or  a  sigh,  then  we  have  the  assurances 
of  these  high  medical  authorities  for  the  fact  that  Jesus 
was  delivered  alive  into  the  hands  of  his  friend  Joseph 
of  Arimathea. 


The  idea  that  such  a  man  as   the  evidence  shows 
Jesus    to   have  been,  could   have   been    actually  killed 


560  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

simply  by  being  confined  as  he  was,  and  sitting  astride  of 
a  wooden  shaft  or  projection,  such  as  has  been  described, 
for  the  short  time  he  was  on  the  cross,  is  so  thoroughly 
and  plainly  incredible,  that  no  hypothesis  or  supposition 
has  been  left  untried  to  account  for  his  death  in  some 
other  manner  :  none  ever  daring  or  even  thinking  to 
inquire,  either  then  or  since,  whether  he  was  dead  at  all ! 
The  causes  of  death  suggested  in  lieu  of  the  ordinary  and 
gospel  notion  of  death  by  crucifixion  have  been  the 
following  :  1.  That  he  died  by  reason  of  extraordinary 
physical  weakness.  2.  That  he  did  not  die  by  reason  of 
any  physical  weakness,  but  from  the  spear  wound,  at  the 
very  last  moment.  3.  That  he  did  not  die  from. either 
of  these  causes,  but  from  rupture  of  the  heart  from  ex- 
cessive mental  emotions — that  the  malediction  of  God, 
for  man's  sins,  burst  his  heart  open!  4.  That  he  died 
from  none  of  these  causes,  nor  from  any  physical  cause 
whatever,  but  from  his  own  divine  will  or  the  special  in- 
tervention of  God. 

The  first  thing  which  strikes  us  on  reading  these 
various  hypotheses  is,  that  they  agree  in  but  two  things, 
namely  :  in  utterly  rejecting  the  Gospel  notion  of  death 
by  crucifixion,  and  in  their  successful  demolishing  of 
all  other  theories  of  death  save  their  own. 

The  theory  of  extraordinary  physical  debility,  from 
whatever  cause,  has  not  a  scintilla  of  evidence  to 
support  it — is,  in  fact,  in  direct  conflict  with  the  entire 
body  of  the  evidence,  and  had  but  one  thing  to  recom- 
mend it,  namely  : — it  was  the  first  and  simplest  sugges- 
tion. If  the  actual  punishment  on  the  cross  could  have 


WAS    HE    DEAD  ?  561 

effected  only  a  very  small  part  of  the  killing  of  a  vig- 
orous man  thirty-three  years  of  age,  it  was  assumed  that 
he  must  have  been  already  so  nearly  dead  that  it  only 
required  that  little  to  kill  him.  This  was  the  only  way 
of  sustaining  what  the  Scriptures  said.  We  have  seen, 
however,  that  the  whole  evidence  is  in  favor  of  the  con- 
clusion that  Jesus  went  upon  the  cross  in  the  prime  of 
his  manhood,  with  a  vigorous  body,  excellent  health,  was 
exceptionally  favored,  and  in  a  calm  and  resolute  spirit. 
We  have  seen,  also,  that  it  does  not  become  Christians 
to  make  this  excuse;  since  it  is  clear  that  Jesus  as  the 
antitype  of  the  paschal  lamb— the  lamb  of  God  sacrificed 
'for  the  sins  of  the  world,  must  have  been  a  pattern  man 
— "without  spot  or  blemish."  And  the  Gospels  well 
bear  out  this  idea  of  him.  From  the  age  of  fourteen, 
we  are  told  that  he  "  grew  and  waxed  strong  in  spirit ; '' 
and  they  furnish  ample  reasons  for  believing  that  he 
grew  to  a  healthy  and  vigorous  manhood,  and  that  he 
fully  maintained  it  till  the  very  moment  he  mounted  the 
cross  with  the  self-possession  of  a  Stoic.  Jesus  had, 
doubtlessly,  a  somewhat  extraordinary  physical,  or 
rather  nervous,  organization,  but  it  was  a  powerful  one, 
and  one  endowed  with  large  vitality  and  unfailing  vigor. 
We  have  seen,  too,  that  the  whole  bearing  of  Jesus 
through  the  entire  scenes  after  his  arrest,  and  in  his 
loud  cries  even  up  to  the  last  moment,  give  a  direct 
contradiction  to  this  suggestion  of  physical  debility. 
The  evidence  does  not  leave  the  matter  to  doubt  and 
conjecture.  Not  a  single  word  or  act  of  Jesus  can  be 
tortured  into  an  evidence  of  either  weakness  or  excessive 
prostration.  Nor  was  he  at  any  time  of  his  public  life 
more  calm  and  self-possessed.  The  mere  fact  of  his 

36 


562  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

fainting  earlier  than  the  two  thieves  who  suffered  with 
him,  is  accounted  for  by  reasons  already  given,  and  gives 
no  support  to  the  idea  of  his  physical  debility.  A 
woman  might  survive  crucifixion  as  long  as  a  man,  and' 
yet  faint  much  oftener.  It  is  not  even  necessary  to  add 
the  further  plain  explanation  that  Jesus,  having  refused 
the  "mercy  cup"  to  deaden  his  sensibilities,  became  the 
more  liable  to  faint  under  the  unmitigated  torture. 
Fatal  fainting,  indeed,  was  utterly  at  war  with  the  facts ; 
but  fainting,  indefinitely  prolonged,  was  a  natural  and 
ordinary  result  of  all  such  tortures,  as  well  as  specially 
probable  with  an  organization  such  as  that  of  Jesus. 
And  again  :  it  would  be  difficult  to  assume  any  state  of 
prostration  .which  would  have  allowed  Jesus  even  to 
walk  to  Calvary ;  which  would  account  for  so  unex- 
ampled a  death  as  is  alleged.  A  young  man  who  was 
not  prostrated  beyond  this  point,  would  still  be  expected 
to  certainly  survive  over  twenty-four  hours ;  while  the 
time  he  actually  suffered  would  have  been  insufficient  to 
kill  an  infant  or  a  valetudinarian.  There  are  thousands 
of  men  in  the  United  States  now  who  would  be  glad  to 
suffer  that  amount  of  punishment  for  a  hundred  dollars, 
and  not  a  few  of  them  who  would  suffer  it  for  ten  ;  and 
perhaps  not  one  out  of  a  hundred  of  them  would  even 
faint  under  the  operation,  any  more  than  did  the  "two 
thieves,"  who  were  worse  treated. 


We  may  now  approach  the  second  hypothesis  : — that 
ne  perished  by  the  spear  wound  in  his  side.    This  theory 


WAS    HE    DEAD  ?  563 

was  also  advanced  because  its  advocates  found  it  impos- 
sible to  believe  in  death  by  so  insignificant  a  punishment 
by  crucifixion,  or  to  perceive  the  slightest  foundation  for 
the  suggestion  of  any  extraordinary  debility  or  prostra- 
tion upon  the  part  of  Jesus.  To  them,  the  only  loop- 
hole for  escape  seemed  to  be  this  spear  thrust  by  the 
soldier  at  the  time  he  was  taken  from  the  cross ;  a  cause 
which  was  never  dreamed  of  by  even  the  Evangelist  who 
mentions  it.  This  theory  is  rather  the  suggestion  of  a 
physician  than  a  theologian,  since,  besides  contradicting 
all  other  theories,  it  flatly  contradicts  the  entire  teaching 
of  the  New  Testament ;  all  the  Gospels  declaring  that 
his  death  had  occurred  before  at  about  the  ninth  hour. 
This  objection  is  fatal  to  it  from  a  Christian  or  Gospel 
stand-point.  But  the  evidence  is  equally  fatal  to  it  from 
a  rational  stand-point.  At  the  time  the  alleged  spear 
thrust  was  given,  the  prisoner  seems  to  have  given  no 
responsive  motion  or  sign  of  life  whatever.  And  to  kill 
a  man,  even  when  in  a  faint,  by  stabbing  him,  without 
his  ever  drawing  a  subsequent  breath,  making  one  gasp, 
or  exhibiting  one  convulsion  or  contraction  of  the 
muscles,  we  deny  to  be  possible.  Such  a  death  would 
be  as  instantaneous  as  that  from  a  lightning  stroke,  and 
could  only  be  partially  approximated  with  a  spear,  and 
then  only  by  a  vigorous  thrust  through  the  very  heart. 
And  even  in  such  a  case  there  would  be  one  or  more 
convulsive  spasms  or  gasps  ensuing.  But  the  advocates 
of  this  theory  seem  to  have  forgotten  one  matter  which 
is  absolutely  fatal  to  it.  Had  Jesus  received  a  heart- 
thrust  so  instantly  fatal  to  life,  it  would  have  been  im- 
possible for  him  to  revive,  or  to  live  after  he  had 
revived.  That  which  had  so  instantly  prevented  him 


564  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

from  living,  would  have  continued  to  prevent  his  living. 
For  we  have  the  identical  authority  for  saying  that 
Jesus  reappeared  in  the  exact  condition  in  which  he  had 
been  taken  from  the  cross, — nail-wounds,  spear-wound 
and  all,  as  we  have  for  saying  that  he  was  speared  at  all. 
There  had  been  no  miracle  performed  on  his  wounds 
while  in  the  tomb,  but  they  were  still  open  and  ready 
for  the  finger  and  hand  of  Thomas  to  be  thrust  into 
them.  This  objection  is  utterly  fatal  to  both  this, 
theory  and  that  of  heart-rupture. 

But,  even  if  we  are  to  credit  this  spear  thrust,  there 
is  neither  assertion,  nor  evidence  in  the  Gospels,  that  it 
was  of  a  character  to  be  injurious  to  life  ;  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  fair  conclusion  from  the  whole  evidence  is 
that  it  was  an  insignificant  affair,  so  far  as  life  was  con- 
cerned, and  was  so  regarded  by  John  at  the  time.  At 
the  time  the  Centurion  gave  the  command  to  break  the 
limbs  of  the  other  sufferers,  he  had  already  personally 
reported  the  actual  death  of  Jesus  to  Pilate.  Knowing 
the  almost  impossibility  of  such  a  thing,  Pilate  pretended 
to  be  amazed  at  the  result,  and,  to  clear  his  own  skirts, 
had  demanded  to  have  the  report  directly  from  the 
officer  himself.  The  Centurion  had  then  been  ordered 
to  deliver  the  body,  at  once,  and  as  it  was,  to  Joseph  of 
Arimathea.  From  that  moment  the  Ccnturidh  and  his 
soldiers  had  but  one  power  and  one  duty  with  regard  to 
Jesus, — and  that  was,  to  immediately  deliver  it  to  Joseph. 
He  would  not  have  dared  to  have  lacerated  the  body 
in  that  wanton  manner  or  to  have  permitted  it  to  be 
done.  Such  an  act  would  not  only  have  been  a  brutal 
one,  even  on  a  dead  body,  and  especially  in  the  sight 


WAS    HE    DEAD  ?  565 

of  his  broken-hearted  mother  and  sorrowing  friends, 
but  it  would  have  been  an  unwarranted  breach  of  duty, 
and  an  act  in  conflict  with  their  whole  spirit  and  con- 
duct towards  Jesus  throughout  this  sad  affair.  It  could 
not  have  been  to  kill  him,  for  he  was  assumed  to  be 
already  dead.  That  a  private  soldier  should  have  dared 
to  do  such  a  thing  in  the  presence  of  his  officer  and 
without  his  authority,  either  on  the  dead  or  living  body, 
is  simply  incredible.  It  would  have  been  exactly  his 
life's-worth  to  have  done  it.  And  certainly  such  an  act, 
under  the  circumstances,  could  not  have  passed  without 
an  indignant  protest,  at  least,  upon  the  part  of  Joseph, 
to  whom  the  body  then  of  right  belonged.  Dr.  Stroud 
very  justly  remarks  in  this  connection — "  Besides,  the 
soldiers  were  not  at  liberty  thus  to  interfere  with  the 
execution  at  their  pleasure,  and  had  any  of  them  pre- 
sumed to  do  so,  it  would  have  been  at  the  risk  of  their 
life." 

If  ever  that  spear  wound  was  given  at  all,  it  was 
given  by,  or  with  the  consent  of  the  Centurion,  and 
with  the  approbation  or  consent  of  Joseph  of  Ari- 
inathea ;  and  was  done  to  favor  Jesus  or  his  sup- 
porters. They  all  knew,  as  well  as  Pilate,  that  a 
death  by  crucifixion  in  so  short  a  time  was  too  "  mar- 
vellous "  not  to  be  suspicious,  and  it  is  possible  that, 
fearing  after  possibilities,  they  had  agreed,  when  with 
Pilate  or  in  returning,  that  some  pretence  of  spearing 
him  should  be  gone  through  with  either  for  a  claim  that 
they  had  despatched  him,  or,  more  probably,  as  evidence 
that  they  had  taken  this  precaution  to  assure  themselves 
of  his  death.  Such  a  course  might  have  been  of  after 


566  JESUS    A^D    RELIGION. 

service  to  his  friends,  and  certainly  might  and  would 
have  been  executed  in  a  manner  that  would  prove 
beneficial  to  Jesus  also.  For  a  slight  puncture  in  the 
side  with  a  spear  would  have  been  a  rude,  but  efficient 
substitute  for  the  lancet  of  the  doctor,  and  such  a 
venesection  would  evidently  tend  to  slowly  re-start  the 
circulation  of  the  blood  and  revive  the  action  of  .the 
heart.  If  the  point  of  the  spear  reached  the  cavity  of 
the  body  at  all,  it  most  probably  entered  the  lower  part 
of  the  plural  cavity  near  the  central  part  of  the  body. 
In  profound  and  prolonged  fainting,  such  as  the  friends 
of  this  theory  contend  for,  such  a  puncture  would 
evidently  tend  to  restore,  instead  of  destroy,  vitality. 
The  fact  that  this  puncture  was  not  intended  to  be  in- 
jurious to  life,  if  it"  was  ever  given,  is  made  clear  .by 
several  considerations.  In  the  first  place,  if  the  Cen- 
turion was  not  conniving  at  the  escape  of  Jesus,  and 
actually  believed  him  dead,  he  could  not  have  thought 
of  killing  him  a  second  time,  and  it  would  have  been 
sheer  wanton  brutality  to  have  mutilated  the  dead  body, 
unless  the  officer  thought  it  a  matter  of  duty  to  .go 
through  all  the- routine  of  the  punishment  as  impartially 
as  he  did  with  the  other  two  sufferers;  in  which  event, 
kowever,  he  would  have  broken  his  limbs  as  he  did  those 
of  the  others.  But  he  did  not  consider  it  his  duty  to 
despatch  Jesus,  in  any  form,  since  that  operation  was 
only  to  hasten  death,  and  he  had  officially  announced 
the  actual  death  of  Jesus,  and  the  body  had  been  ordered 
to  be  given  up  to  his  friend  ;  and  whether  he  really  be- 
lieved, or  did  not  believe,  that  he  was  dead,  he  was  act- 
ing upon  the  positive  assumption  that  he  was  dead,  and 
therefore  could  have  done  nothing  with  a  view  either  to 


WAS    HE    DEAD?  567 

destroyer  injure  life  or  to  mutilate  the  dead  remains  over 
which  he  had  no  further  right.  It  is  again  manifest,  also, 
that,  as  Jesus  reappeared,  and  was  with  his  disciples  many 
times  with  this  very  spear  thrust  still  open  and  unhealed, 
and  could  go  about  without  inconvenience  or  complaint 
of  suffering,  the  wound  must  have  been,  not  only  not 
mortal,  but  comparatively  insignificant.  It  is  very 
apparent,  also,  that  the  very  object  of  the  early  applica- 
tion for  the  body  of  Jesus  and  the  official  report  of  \he 
officer  was  to  prevent  his  being  treated  like  the  other 
prisoners,  and  to  thus  prevent  either  his  actual  death  or 
his  mutilation  after  death.  That  this  object,  concurred 
in  by  the  Centurion  as  well  as  Joseph,  should  have  been 
directly  frustrated,  either  with  or  without  the  consent 
of  the  Centurion,  is  quite  unbelievable. 

While,  however,  this  whole  matter  of  the  spear  thrust 
has  all  the  flesh-marks  of  a  fabrication,  and  the  theory 
that  Jesus  was  killed  by  it  is  utterly  unscriptural  and 
unsupported  by  the  evidence,  its  learned  advocates  lend 
us  their  authority  for  concluding  from  the  entire  evidence, 
that  Jesus  was  only  in  a  fainting  or  swooning  condition 
when  he  was  given  up  for  dead,  and  that  he  was  still 
alive  up  to  the  time  of  this  asserted  spear  wound.  Now, 
if  they  are  right  in  this  conclusion,  as  they  certainly  are, 
we  see  that  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  he  was 
still  alive  when  carried  away  into  secrecy,  even  if  the 
spear  puncture  was  actually  made.  In  fact,  if  blood 
ever  flowed  "forthwith'"'  -out  of  that  wound,  as  John 
says  it  did,  then  that  fact,  in  itself,  proves  that  he  was 
not  dead.  For  blood  will  not  flow  from  a  puncture  in 
the  flesh  of  a  man  who  has  been  dead  an  hour  or  more, 


568  JESUS    AND    RELIGION 

unless  some  considerable  vein  or  artery  be  opened  by  it ; 
and  then,  at  most,  there  would  only  one  or  two  drops 
ooze  slowly  out  by  mere  force  of  gravity  : — a  fact  of 
which  John  was  evidently  ignorant,  for  he  claims  that 
Jesus  had  been  dead  since  the  "  ninth  hour."  If  John's 
spear  puncture  proves  anything,  therefore,  it  proves  that 
Jesus  was  still  alive. 

FOURTH  HYPOTHESIS  :  Having  examined  all  the  pos- 
sible perceptible  causes  for  the  incredible  fact  of  the  death 
of  Jesus,  we  have  still  to  meet  another  supposititious, 
hidden  physical  cause,  namely  :  rupture  of  the  heart 
from  emotional  causes.  This  fact  is,  not  only  occult  in 
its  nature,  but  also  in  its  only  decisive  indicia  or  symp- 
toms. That  such  cases  sometimes  occur  is  true,  but  it 
is  equally  true  that  they  are  of  rare  occurrence,  and  that, 
to  the  extent  of  their  rarity,  are  they  improbable  and  re- 
quire the  clearer  proof — a  proof,  only  possible  by  examin- 
ing the  heart  itself. 

The  statements  of  Sir  James  Y.  Simpson,  in  the  letter 
already  quoted,  are  worthy  of  the  highest  consideration 
on  this  point,  however  we  may  differ  with  him  in  his 
adaptation  of  the  facts  in  this  case  to  his  professional 
rules.  He  declares  that  "  no  medical  jurist  would,  in  a 
court  of  law,  venture  to  assert  from  mere  symptoms  pre- 
ceding death,  that  a  person  had  certainly  died  of  rupture 
of  the  heart.  To  obtain  positive  proof,  that  rupture  of 
the  heart  was  the  cause  of  death,  a  post-mortem  exam- 
ination of  the  chest  would  be  necessary."  With  this 
theory,  then,  we  have  to  begin  with  a  certainty  of  ending 
in  an  uncertainty.  At  best,  it  would  be  impossible  for 


WAS    HE    DEAD  ?'  569 

us  to  have  more  than  mere  persuasive  evidence  of  its 
probability.  And,  as  it  utterly  denies  and  excludes  all 
other  possible  causes  of  death  on  the  cross,  it  would,  at 
best,  forever  leave  us  in  utterly  irremediable  uncertainty 
of  a  fact  upon  which  they  claim  human  salvation  to  be 
based  ; — a  state  of  things  which  it  is  impious  to  predicate 
of  God. 

It  is  contended  by  the  advocates  of  this  theory,  that 
the  external  symptoms  of  heart-rupture  were  present  in 
this  case;  and,  by  the 'most  bald  and  unscrupulous 'as- 
sumptions, they  endeavor,  not  only  to  convert  the  re- 
corded facts  into  such  symptoms,  but  "to  get  the  benefit 
of  a  kind  of  post-mortem  examination  through  means  of 
the  single  alleged  spear  thrust.  They  have  been  driven 
to  resort  to  this  occult  cause  and  this  extreme  course  of 
assumption  and  distortion  of  facts  because  they  must 
account  for  actual  death  in  some  way,  and  they  have 
found  all  the  other  causes  assigned  to  be  wholly  incred- 
ible. Dr.  Stroud  tells  us  that  it  is  the  only  possible  way 
of  accounting  for  the  death  of  Jesus.  And,  as  we  are 
satisfied  that  he  was  not  dead  at  all,  we  are  quite  satisfied 
that  so  far  as  those  other  theories  are  concerned,  he  is, 
and  must  be,  right. 

Let  us  examine,  then,  what  basis  there  has  oeen 
found  for  this  new  suggestion.  And  first,  as  to  whether 
the  conditions,  causes  and  symptoms  attending  heart- 
rupture  were  present  in  the  case  of  Jesus.  Dr.  Stroud, 
the  champion  of  this  new  theory,  quotes  Dr.  Coapland 
for  the  causes  of  this  rare  phenomenon  as  follows  : — 
"  Violent  mental  emotions,  especially  anger,  fright,  terror, 


5/O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

unexpected  disappointments,  distressing  intelligence 
abruptly  communicated,  anxiety,  etc.,  sudden  and  violent 
muscular  efforts  and  laborious  or  prolonged  physical  ex- 
ertions of  any  kind,  particularly  in  strained  conditions." 
These  are  their  full  selection  of  causes.  And  there  cer- 
tainly can  be  no  motive  for  questioning  them,  for  it  may 
be  unhesitatingly  asserted,  that  not  a- single  one  of  them 
existed  in  the  case  of  Jesus  as  it  is  disclosed  by  the  Gos- 
pels. Jesus  had  no  "  violent  mental  emotions,"  of  any 
kind,  on  the  cross ;  nor  had  he  had  since  he  left  the 
garden  of  Gethsemane.  His  conduct,  temper,  and  whole 
bearing  from  the  time  of  his  arrest  had  been  continuously 
and  unusually  calm  and  stoical,  and  utterly  devoid  of 
even  ordinary  animation ;  exhibiting,  at  times,  even 
sullenness  and  indifference.  And  this  continued  to 
be  the  case  up  to  the  very  moment  he  went  upon  the 
cross.  While  on  the  cross  his  calmness  and  self-pos- 
session was  uninterrupted  up  to  the  last  few  moments. 
There  was  no  new,  unexpected  or  unusual  cause  of  ex- 
citement or  emotion,  nor  the  slightest  chance  of  bodily 
strain  or  exertion,  throughout  the  entire  proceedings ; 
nor  did  the  sufferer,  by  word  or  act,  indicate,  for  a  single 
moment,  the  existence  or  presence  of  such.  He  had 
nerved  himself  to  endure  what  he  knew  he  had  to  en- 
dure, and  sat  in  his  constrained  and  painful  position 
without  a  word  or  a  murmur,  save  in  response  to  others, 
and  then  only  with  admirable  temper  and  calmness. 
There  was,  not  only  no  such  causes  for  any  sudden  or 
over  strain  of  the  heart,  but  the  very  reverse  was  true, 
and  eminently  true  and  manifest. 

But  there  has  been  one  preliminary  which  has  been 
overlooked  in  this  matter.     Were  any,  or  even  several, 


WAS    HE    DEAD  ?  5/1 

of  the  immediate  causes  of  heart-rupture  shown  to  be 
present  in  this  case,  it  would  be  of  no  avail  unless  it  were 
also  shown  that  Jesus  had  a  defective  or  diseased  heart. 
For  the  causesa  ssigned  for  heart-rupture,  or  rather  the 
occasions  of  it,  may,  andr  do  happen  every  day  to  "  the 
million "  without  the  slightest  danger  of  heart  break. 
The  real  source  of  heart-rupture  is  in  the  heart  itself. 
Of  this  there  is,  and  can  be,  no  question.  Where  then 
shall  we  find  the  evidence  that  Jesus  had  either  an  im- 
perfect or  diseased  heart  ?  If  it  stood  the  strain  in 
Gethsemane,  when  under  emotion  so  violent  as  to  send 
the  blood  out  through  every  pore  of  his  skin,  was  it 
likely  to  burst  while  he  was  calmly  sitting  on  the  cross  ? 
— for  such  mere  bodily  pain  as  he  suffered  is  not  one  of 
the  causes  of  heart-rupture,  nor  claimed  to  be.  In 
answering  the  suggestion  of  the  extraordinary  debility 
of  Jesus,  Dr.  Stroud  protests  against  the  supposition  of 
any  defect  in  this  lamb  of  God  or  sin  offering.  But 
must  he  not  show  just  such  a  defect  or  weakness  in  his 
very  centre  of  life,  to  maintain  his  own  theory  ? 


As  to  the  symptoms  of  heart-rupture,  Sir  James  Y. 
Simpson  quotes  for  authority  Dr.  Walshe,  Professor  of 
Medicine  in  University  College,  London, — as  follows : 
"  The  hand  is  suddenly  carried  to  the  front  of  the  chest, 
a  piercing  shriek  is  uttered,  etc."  These  two  are  all  the 
symptoms  which  he  quotes,  and,  of  course,  he  can  rely 
upon  only  one  of  these,  and,  unfortunately  for  his  cause, 
upon  but  that  one  of  them  which  is  the  least  character- 


572  JESUS   AND   RELIGION. 

istic  and  indicative.  The  sudden  raising  of  the  hand  to 
the  region  of  the  heart  locates  the  cause  of  the  shriek, 
and  tends  to  limit  and  point  out  its  otherwise  ivliolly 
indefinite  significance.  Without  this  location,  as  indi- 
cated by  the  hand,  such  a  shriek  would  no  more  indicate 
heart-rupture,  than  any  other  sudden  and  unexpected 
pang, — even  that  from  a  coal  of  fire,  or  from  a  wasp's 
sting.  And  yet,  in  this  case,  the  hands  were  confined, 
and  they  are  compelled  to  rely  upon  finding  an  indefinite 
"shriek"  for  their  sole  external  symptom.  They  are 
therefore  reduced  to  a  single  external  symptom,  and  that 
a  symptom  which  exists  in  heart-rupture  in  common 
with  many  other  pangs.  But,  Why  dwell  on  the  total 
uncertainty  of  this  symptom,  especially  when  thus  unlo- 
cated  by  the  hand,  when  no  such  symptom  actually  oc- 
curred ?  There  was  no  such  "  piercing  shriek "  as 
occurs  in  heart-rupture  in  this  case.  Such  a  shriek  does 
not  consist  of  a  verbal  exclamation,  prayer,  or  appeal 
or  other  verbal  outburst,  but  manifestly  consists  of  an 
inarticulate  shriek  or  sudden  cry,  from  the  anguish  of  a 
sudden  and  fierce  pang.  Webster  defines  the  word, 
shriek,  as  signifying  "  A  sharp,  shrill  outcry  or  scream, 
such  as  is  produced  by  sudden  terror  or  extreme 
anguish."  When,  therefore,  we  use  the  word,  "  shriek," 
and  qualify  it  by  the  word,  "  piercing,"  and  then  use 
•  them  to  characterize  the  verbal  exclamations  of  Jesus 
when  he  exclaimed  "  My  God,  my  God,  Why  hast  thou 
forsaken  me  !  "  or  "  Father,  into  thy  hands  I  commend 
my  spirit,"  or  "  It  is  finished,"  we  are  certainly  grossly 
misapplying  language  and  misconceiving  the  nature  of 
the  outcry  from  heart-rupture.  These  verbal  appeals 
and  prayers  of  Jesus  have  nothing  in  common  with  the 


WAS    HE    DEAD?  573 

involuntary  and  inarticulate  shriek  which  is  forced  out 
by  the  sudden  and  unexpected  pang  of  heart-rupture 
save  that  they  both  emanate  from  bodily  suffering  ;  and 
it  is  trespassing  upon  good  nature  to  attempt  to  identify 
them.  The  exclamations  and  appeals  of  Jesus  were  not 
the  result  of  a  sudden  and  unexpected  pang,  but  of 
persistent  and  unendurable  torture.  It  was  the  exclama- 
tion and  prayer  for  mercy  which  the  child  or  slave 
makes  when  they  can  no  longer  bear  their  whipping,  or 
the  exclamation  of  the  patient  under  the  hand  of  the  sur- 
geon in  a  prolonged  and  overpowering  surgical  operation, 
or  the  cry  to  God  of  the  martyr  on  the  rack.  It  was 
nature's  outcry  for  help,  or  of  surrender,  when  it  could 
no  longer  continue  the  conflict  with  suffering.  It  was 
the  cry  of  "  enough  ! "  from  whipped  nerves  and  over- 
mastered will.  The  victims  of  the  Inquisition,  whose 
hearts  did  not  break,  could  tell  us  the  full  significance 
of  every  tone  of  that  half-complaining,  half -appealing, 
and  wholly  despairing  cry  of — "  My  God  !  my  God ! 
Why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  !  "  Suffice  it  then  to  say, 
that  even  the  "  piercing  shriek,"  indifferently  attending 
heart-rupture  and  many  other  pangs,  did  not  occur  in 
the  case  of  Jesus  at  all,  but  only  the  usual  natural  and 
repeated  exclamations  wrung  from  him,  not  by  a  sudden 
pang,  but  by  prolonged  and  overmastering  suffering,  and 
that  even  this  sole  and  indecisive  symptom,  therefore, 
was  relied  upon  in  defiance  of  the  plain  facts. 


We  have  seen,  then,  that  neither  the  predisposition 
or  condition    for   heart-rupture,   nor   its    occasions   or 


5/4  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

causes,  nor  its  symptoms  were  presented  in  the  case  of 
Jesus.  It  remains,  therefore,  only  to  consider  the  value 
to  be  attached  to  the  evidence  furnished  by  what  they 
have  termed  a  "  rough  post-mortem  " — that  is,  by  a  single 
spear  puncture  !  Acute  to  observe  the  assumptions  and 
perversions  of  others,  none  have  been  so  recklessly  pro- 
lific of  them  as  Dr.  Stroud  himself.  Matter  doubtful, 
indifferent  or  unknown  he  at  once  assumes  to  be  of  the 
character  which  is  most  favorable  to  his  own  theory. 
Not  only  has  he  perverted  the  facts  to  secure  some  pre- 
tence for  a  symptom  of  heart-rupture,  and  assumed  a 
hidden  occasion  or  inducing  cause  for  heart-rupture  in 
this  case,  but  he  assumes  and  moulds  the  facts  ad  libitum, 
to  secure  material  from  the  spear  wound  to  establish 
that  flimsy  hypothesis  ;  forgetting  that,  as  a  hidden, 
rare,  and  wholly  ungospel  assumption,  it,  of  all  others,  re- 
quires the  clearest  affirmative  proof  .  There  are  a  whole 
series  of  facts,  each  one  of  which  constitutes  a  necessary 
link  in  the  chain  of  facts  from  which  he  attempts  to 
construct  an  argument  in  favor  of  his  proposition,  and 
each  one  of  which  he  gratuitously  assumes  to  have  ex- 
isted in  a  form  favorable  to  his  purposes.  It  is,  of 
course,  necessary  to  his  very  first  step,  that  the  spear 
thrust  should  have  been  actually  given  ; — a  fact  whicji  is 
more  than  questionable.  Secondly,  it  is  necessary  that 
the  thrust  should  have  been  made  from  below  and  with 
a  specific  angle  of  elevation,  and  that  it  should  have 
penetrated  the. body  at  a  specific  point  ;  since  he  con- 
tends that  the  spear  reached  the  heart  and  detached  the 
clotted  blood  around  it  or  within  the  cordiac  sac,  and 
that  this  red  clot  or  crassamentum  and  the  serum 
expressed  from  it  constituted  the  blood  and  water  which 


WAS    HE    DEAD?  575 

run  down  and  exuded  from  the  side.  Thirdly,  it  was 
necessary  that  the  thrust  should  have  been  on  the  left 
side.  Fourthly,  that  the  thrust  should  have  been  vig- 
orous enough  to  have  penetrated  to  the  heart.  Fifthly, 
that  the  blood  and  water  were  separate,  or  unmixed. 
Sixthly,  that  the  blood  and  water  were  not  blood  and 
water,  but  crassamentum  and  serum.  If  even  one  of 
these  facts  should  fail  to  be  '  true,  the  whole  argument 
falls  into  ruins.  And  yet  each  and  every  one  of  them 
are  sheer  assumptions,  without  even  a  hint  in  the  evi- 
dence to  support  them.  To  secure  even  a  single  reason 
in  favor  of  the  theory,  every  one  of  these  facts  must  be 
true, — to  commence  with ;  and  yet,  they  are  not  only 
generally  discredited  by  the  evidence,  but  there  is  not 
one  of  them  which  is  not  as  likely  to  be  false  as  true, 
and  the  opposite  of  which  might  not  have  been  assumed 
with  equal  plausibility.  What  evidence,  for  example, 
have  we  as  to  the  precise  direction  and  point  of  entrance 
of  the  spear  ? .  What  proof  have  we  that  the  wound  was 
on  the  left,  instead  of  right  side  ?  Not  a  particle.  And 
yet,  if  it  were  not  on  that  side,  the  whole  argument  fails. 
If  the  right  side  had  been  more  favorable,  it  would  have 
been  as  boldly  assumed  and  with  exactly  the  same  plaus- 
ibility. What  evidence  have  we  that  the  soldier  thrust 
him  to  the  heart  ?  There  is  not  a  word  of  direct  proof 
either  way,  and  we  have  seen  how  completely  the  circum- 
stances lead  to  a  different  conclusion  as  to  the  character 
of  the  thrust,  if  it  were  ever  given.  And  it  is,  moreover, 
clear  that  to  have  given  the  precise  thrust  required, 
must  have  been  a  mere  accident,  since  it  would  have  re- 
quired the  exact  knowledge  of  an  anatomist  and  the 
skill  of  a  Spanish  taxidor  to  have  made  it  designedly. 


5/6  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

And  again,  What  proof  have  we  that  the  "  blood  and 
water  "  was  red  clot  and  serum  ?  By  what  right  does 
he  assume  that  they  were  something  different  from  what 
the  only  evidence  on  the  subject  says  they  were  ?  There 
is  no  impossibility  in  the  evidence,  as  it  .stands,  to  justify 
or  excuse  such  a  perversion  ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  a  far 
more  possible  and  probable  explanation  ean  be  found  for 
it  than  that  furnished  for  this  assumed  substitute  for  it. 


Besides  these  unjustifiable  assumptions,  there  are 
other  considerations  which  are  wholly  destructive  of  the 
claims  based  upon  this  post-mortem  evidence.  They 
contend  that  the  heart  of  Jesus  had  been  ruptured  at  the 
ninth  hour  ;  that  the  blood  at  once  flowed  out,  after  the 
thrust  or  puncture,  and  had  been  separated  into  red  clot 
and  serum  before  the  spear  thrust  was  given ;  and  that 
upon  being  punctured  with  the  spear,  these  separated 
elements  of  the  blood  run  out  through  the  aperture 
made  by  the  spear.  Granting  all  the  unjustifiable  as- 
sumptions upon  which  these  premises  are  based,  and 
accepting  them  as  they  are  assumed,  we  deny  the 
possibility,  much  more  the  probability  or  certainty, 
of  the  results  claimed  ;  fo:  the  following,  among  other 
reasons.  When  blood  coagulates,  the  red  particles 
invariably  adhere  to  some  adjacent  surface,  in  a  gelatin- 
ous and  cohesive  mass.  In  most  cases  of  rupture  of  the 
heart  the  red  clot  forms  around  the  external  walls  of  the 
heart  itself,  and  adheres  to  them  like  a  gelatinous  coat- 
ing or  partial  envelope ;  while  the  serum  of  the  blood, 


WAS    HE    DEAD?  577 

when  expressed  from  the  mass,  settles  in  a  liquid  form 
into  the  surrounding  cardiac  sac.  Sometimes,  again, 
this  coagulated  and  cohering  mass  of  red  clot  adheres  to, 
and  coats,  the  inner  walls  of  the  cardiac  sac.  We  con- 
tend, in  the  first  place,  that,  under  either  of  these  ^con- 
ditions, the  sharp-pointed  spear  of  the  soldier  would  not 
have  so  ruptured  and  broken  up  this  cohesive  and  ad- 
hering mass  of  jelly  as  to  have  detached  it  from  the  walls 
of  the  heart  or  those  of  its  enclosing  sac,  and  caused  it 
to  have  fallen  or  slid  out  of  the  slit  made  in  the  cardiac 
sac.  The  result  of  the  penetration  of  the  sharp  point 
of  a  spear  into  such  a  dead  mass,  so  conditioned,  would 
have  been,  that  this  cohesive  and  elastic  matter  would 
have  parted  and  yielded  before  the  smooth  point  of  the 
metallic  blade  of  the  spear,  and  then  simply  reclosedvt\\vc\. 
that  sharp  point  was  withdrawn.  In  such  case  there 
would  be  no  detachment  or  separation  of  clots  or  small 
masses  from  the  general  mass  ;  nor  would  the  slit  remain 
open  ;  nor  would  there  be  any  tendency  to  disunite  the 
red  clot  eithep  from  the  heart  to  which  it  hung  or  from 
the  sac  on  which  it  rested  and  to  which  it  adhered  ;  but 
simply  a  gradual  lateral  yielding  as  the  progressively 
enlarging  point  entered,  and  a  recovery  of  its  former 
position,  and  thus  a  reclosing  of  the  slight  slit  when  the 
lance  was  withdrawn.  If,  however,  we  concede  for  the 
moment,  that  such  a  mass  would  be  broken  up  and 
detached  by  such  a  cause,  and  that  it  would  escape 
through  the  slit  in  the  cardiac  sac,  Would  these  blood 
clots  or  masses  find  their  way  out  through  the  slit  in  the 
side  of  the  outer  wall  of  the  bodv  ?  We  contend  that  it 

J 

was  impossible  T  The  heart  is  located  in  the  thoracic 
cavity,  slightly  to  the  left  of  the  central  line  of  the  breast 

37 


5/8  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

bone,  with  its  lower  and  conical  point  resting  about  an 
inch  and  a  half  inside,  or  to  the  right  of  the  left  nipple. 
It  nowhere  touches  the  side-walls  of  the  chest.  Between 
it  and  the  ribs  on  the  left  side,  where  the  puncture  is  sup- 
posed to  have  been  made,  the  left  lobe  of  the  lungs  in- 
tervenes and  separates  them,  and  covers,  not  only  the 
entire  left  side  of  the  heart,  but  extends  some  distance 
below  it  ; — thus  forming  a  complete  barrier  between  the 
heart  and  the  adjacent  walls  of  the  body  and  for  some 
distance  below.  With  an  elevation  of  the  spear  point 
only  from  one  and  a  half  to  two  feet  (or  even  three  feet), 
above  the  level  of  the  hand,  as  would  be  the  case  in  this 
instance,  it  would  seem  impossible  for  it  to  reach  the 
heart  without  passing  through  this  intervening  lobe  of 
the  lungs ;  and  if  so,  it  is  clear  that  the  spongy  and 
elastic  substance  of  the  lung  would  so  immediately  re- 
close  the  aperture  made  by  the  lance  point  as  to  render 
it  impossible  for  the  clotted  blood  to  pass  out  through 
it,  even  if  it  would  tend  at  all  to  do  so.  But,  even  were 
the  wall  of  the  body  punctured  below  the  lung  (and 
much  more  above  or  opposite  it),  still  the  clotted  blood 
would  not  issue  from  any  wound  which  would  be  made 
by  a  spear  wound  in  the  walls  of  the  body.  In  the  first 
place,  such  an  incision  in  a  body  so  recently  dead  would 
reclose  sufficiently  to  prevent  clots  of  blood  from  pass- 
ing. And  secondly,  there  would  be  no  force  or  tendency 
to  drive  them  in  that  direction.  For  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, that  the  body  was  in  an  upright  position,  and  as- 
sumed to  have  been  dead.  There  would  be  no  power 
from  the  heart  or  circulation,  and  no  force  operating  but 
the  force  of  gravity  ;  and  that  would  cause  both  the  clot 
and  serum  to  fall  directly  downwards  through  the  thor- 


WAS    HE    DEAD?  579 

acic  cavity,  subject  only  to  such  deflections  as  obstruct- 
ing objects  might  give  it.  Unless  some  such  deflection 
occurred  they  would  both  settle  into  the  bottom  of  the 
thoracic  cavity.  But  there  was  nothing  to  cause  such 
deflection.  The  matter  issuing  from  the  cardiac  sac 
would  fall  directly  downwards,  near  the  centre  of  the 
body,  without  any  lateral  tendency,  and  would  never  reach 
the  puncture  in  the  wall  of  the  left  side  at  all.  But  even 
if  it  were  to  reach  it,  it  would  slide  down  the  smooth 
inner  side  of  the  wall  until  it  reached  the  bottom  of  the 
cavity,  and  the  slit  made  by  the  spear  in  that  wall  would 
not  obstruct  it,  and  would  certainly  have  no  tendency  to 
deflect  its  downward  course  into  its  own  small  and  almost 
lateral  channel,  if,  indeed,  that  aperture  were  not  so 
closed  as  to  prevent  its  passage.  So  that,  by  the  very 
position,  condition,  nature  and  construction  of  the  body 
and  by  the  law  of  gravity,  it  was  impossible  for  the  mat- 
ter issuing  from  the  cardiac  sac  to  naturally  run  out  at 
that  lateral  wound. 

It  is  important,  also,  to  note  the  peculiar  phraseology 
of  the  description  of  this  issuing  of  the  blood  and  water. 
It  will  be  observed  that  the  witness  uses"  the  strongest 
possible  word  to  express  their  instantaneous  outflow — . 
when  the  spear  was  withdrawn.  He  declares  that  they 
came  out  "  forthwith."  Now,  were  it  possible  to  suppose 
that  the  clotted  blood  within  the  cardiac  sac  could  be 
broken  up  and  detached  by  the  penetration  of  a  spear 
point,  and  could  we  suppose  it  issuing  from  the  slit  in 
that  sac  and  passing  downwards  until  it  reached  the 
slit  in  the  wall  of  the  body  and  then  passing  nearly  lat- 
erally out  of  that  slit,  still,  all  experience  shows  that  the 


580  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

operation  would  take  such  a  time  as  could  not  be  reason- 
ably described  by  the  term  "  forthwith."  Persons  who 
are  familiar  with  the  movements  of  clotted  blood  in 
slaughtered  animals,  and  especially  through  slits  or  aper- 
tures made  by  sharp-pointed  instrumencs,  are  aware  of 
the  sluggish  nature  of  its  movements  and  of  the  great 
difficulty  of  getting  it  to  run  out  all,  unless  a  direct  down- 
ward and  quite  open  passage  is  furnished  for  it,  and  its 
exit  is  aided  by  successive  joltings  to  start  its  move- 
ments. Persons  having  had  such  experiences  will  find 
themselves  incapable  of  believing  that  the  clotted  blood 
could  fall  or  slide  out,  without  help,  in  this  case,  in  a 
manner  to  elicit  a  declaration  that  it  appeared  "  forth- 
with," even  were  it  possible  for  it  to  run  out  at  all. 

There  is  still  another  and  wholly  fatal  objection  to 
this  theory.  It  assumes  a  wound,  both  by  the  rupture  of 
the  heart  and  the  thrust  of  the  spear,  which  would  neces- 
sarily be  fatal  to  the  living  person.  And  yet,  Jesus,  as 
we  have  seen,  reappeared  in  apparent  comfort,  except 
being  hungry,  just  in  the  bodily  condition  he  was  in 
when  taken  from  the  cross, — spear  wound  and  all,  save 
that  he  had  revived.  And  certainly  the  same  rupture 
of  the  heart  and  spear  thrust  to  the  heart  which  would 
have  killed  him,  would  have  prevented  him  from  living, 
and  uncomplainingly  walking  about  the  country  and 
eating,  just  as  when  in  health.  It  is  impossible  to  escape 
this  objection  even  by  the  supposition  of  a  miracle  ;  for 
the  same  author  who  gives  us  the  spear  thrust,  upon 
which  they  are  compelled  to  depend,  also  assures  us  that 
Jesus  reappeared  with  his  wounds  just  as  they  had  been 
given. 


WAS    HE    DEAD  ?  581 

We  may  now  turn  our  attention  to  the  supernatural 
theory.  Having  failed  to  find  a  credible  natural  cause 
or  mode  of  death  for  Jesus,  the  shrewder  theologians  of 
both  ancient  and  modern  times,  turned  to  their  never- 
failing  mode  of  accounting  for  the  irrationalities  and  ab- 
surdities of  their  faith.  When  reason  and  common  sense 
revolted,  they  never  thought  a  moment  of  questioning 
their  creed.  Their  faith  never  wavered.  That  was  "  an- 
chored within  the  vale."  It  was  irrational  and  absurd  to 
say  that  Jesus  died  from  natural  causes.  Such  a  con- 
clusion was  utterly  irreconcilable  with  the  facts.  What 
was  left,  then,  but  to  go  outside  of  the  realm  of  Nature 
and  Reason  for  a  cause  ?  Was  there  anything  left  to 
men  who  had  never  dreamed  of  doubting  the  death 
itself,  but  to  say,  that  he  voluntarily  extinguished  his 
life  by  an  act  of  his  own  will  as  one  of  the  Trinity,  or 
that  another  member  of  that  Trinity  had  extinguished  it 
fpr  him,  in  defiance  of  Nature  and  her  laws  ?  To  this 
final  make-shift,  as  we  have  seen,  the  wisest  and  best  of 
them  have  been  driven.  To  a  blind  faith  this  seemed 
to  offer  at  least  a  hope  of  mental  repose  and  a  certain 
kind  of  security  from  discomfiture,  however  unenviable. 
But  however  difficult  it  'may  be  to  positively  prove  that 
a  death  did  not  occur  by  divine  interference,  it  is  by  no 
means  so  difficult  to  prove  that  the  man  did  not  die  at 
all,  since  the  fact  of  death  is  positively  rebutted  by  the 
fact  of  subsequent  life. 


Let  us,  however,  briefly  consider  what  pretence  can 


582  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

be  set  up  for  asserting  a  miraculous  death  by  divine 
volition  in  this  case.  From  the  time  that  he  was  ar- 
rested until  he  was  taken  from  the  cross  the  Gospels 
give  no  hint  of  either  supernatural  power  being  exercised 
in  behalf  of  Jesus,  in  any  form,  or  of  an  attempt  to  exer- 
cise such  power  by  Jesus  himself.  Angels  ceased  their 
visits  after  the  hand  of  the  Law  was  laid  upon  him,  the 
last  of  them  having  barely  escaped  the  clutches  of  its 
minions.  They,  as  usual,  exhibited  their  coyness  in  day- 
light, and  in  the  presence  of  the  intelligent  officials. 
Jesus  admitted  that  the  hour  for  the  triumph  of  the 
powers  of  darkness  had  come.  He  was  invited  to  ex- 
hibit his  power,  but  declined  the  invitation.  On  the 
cross  he  was  taunted  with  his  professions  of  supernat- 
ural power,  and  defied  to  show  it ;  and  yet  he  remained 
dumb.  His  very  last  appeal  was  a  confession  that  God 
\\.z&  forsaken  him.  All  the  facts  which  occurred  after 
Jesus  came  under  the  inspection  and  control  of  the 
Jewish  and  Roman  officials,  lost  not  only  all  pretence  of 
coming  from  supernatural  interference,  but  were  so  na- 
kedly human  and  natural  that  even  his  miracle-loving 
followers  were  deterred  from  claiming  such  interposi- 
tions. All  the  facts  concerning  Jesus  during  this  period 
find  ready  and  legitimate  explanations  in  natural  causes. 
Nor  do  the  Gospels  resort  to  any  other  sources  of 
explanation,  or  give  the  slightest  encouragement  for 
others  to  do  so.  For  everything  which  occurred  to 
Jesus,  they  give  or  furnish  a  natural  cause.  This  the- 
ory of  death  by  divine  interposition  is,  indeed,  not  only 
without  support  from  the  evidence,  and  therefore  wholly 
gratuitous,  but  it  is  maintained  in  the  very  teeth  of  the 
doctrines  and  declarations  of  the  Evangelists  and  Apos- 


WAS    HE    DEAD  ?  $83 

ties.  If  God  or  Jesus  arrested,  or,  as  they  say,  "  pre- 
vented," the  punishment  of  crucifixion,  and  released  his 
soul  to  prevent  further  suffering  and  death  by  that 
means,  then  Jesus  might  have  been  a  lamb  slain  before 
the  foundation  of  the  world,  but  he  certainly  was  not 
slain  afterwards.  If  he  was  required  to  be  slain  as  an 
offering  in  discharge  of  man's  indebtedness  to  God  for 
the  penalties  of  broken  laws,  then  such  a  payment  was  a 
sham  one — was  voluntarily  suspended,  almost  as  soon 
as  commenced,  by  either  the  assumed  payer  or  by  the 
divine  Creditor  himself.  If  the  sacrifice  was  necessary 
to  pay  the  debt,  then  the  debt  was  not  paid,  if  this  theory 
be  true.  The  Evangelists  and  Apostles  were,  at  least, 
not  so  illogical  as  to  sanction  such  an  illogical  conclu- 
sion as  this  ;  and  did  not.  The  conception  is  adverse 
to  their  whole  notions  of  the  atonement  and  their  dec- 
larations concerning  the  mode  of  it.  Their  views  and 
declarations  in  regard  to  both  are  unequivocal  and  inca- 
pable of  rational  misinterpretation.  The  Gospels  all  de- 
clare that  he  "  gave  up  the  ghost,"  but  this  was  but  an 
ordinary  mode  of  saying  that  he  died.  Elsewhere  in  the 
New  Testament  we  are  shown  exactly  what  they  meant. 
Paul  says,  "  He  became  obedient  unto  death,  even  the 
death  of  the  cross'1  St.  Stephen,  in  his  defence  before 
the  Sanhedrim,  charges  the  Jews  with  having  been  the 
betrayers  and  "  murderers  "  of  Jesus,  which  they  could 
not  have  been,  if  he  were  not  murdered,  but  was  ex- 
empted from  their  murderous  attempts  by  a  special  di- 
vine interposition.  Peter  replies  to  them  in  language 
still  more  specific  on  this  point.  He  says  to  them — 
"  The  God  of  our"  fathers  raised  from  the  dead  Jesus 
whom  ye  slew  by  crucifixion"  On  the  day  of  Pentecost 


584  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

he  also  speaks  of  Jesus  as  one  whom  they  "  took  and  by 
the  hands  of  wicked  men  crucified  and  slew!'  These  as 
well  as  many  other  declarations  and  the  whole  tenor  of 
their  doctrines  and  teachings  are  conclusive  as  to  the 
fact  that  they  believed  and  held  that  Jesus  died  from  the 
sufferings  of  crucifixion,  and  that  his  death  was  a  nat- 
ural murder  at  the  hands  of  men.  As  this  theory,  there- 
fore, can  neither  draw  support  from  natural  laws,  causes 
or  reasons,  all  of  which  it  expressly  transcends  and  de- 
nes, nor  from  its  sole  possible  support,  namely  :  the  dec- 
larations of  the  men  upon  whose  supposed  inspiration 
their  entire  faith  rests,  it  stands  without  support  of  any 
kind — a  mere  gratuitous  assumption,  seized  upon  as  a 
dernier  resort  when  all  conceivable  natural  and  rational 
modes  of  accounting  for  the  fact  that  Jesus  actually  died 
on  the  cross  had  been  tried  and  discarded  as  incredible. 
The  very  necessity  of  being  driven  to  such  a  resort,  to 
account  for  the  fact  of  the  death  of  Jesus,  in  the  very 
teeth  of  the  scriptures,  and  in  defiance  of  natural  law 
and  reason,  is  overwhelming  evidence  that  the  fact  itself 
did  not  exist, — where  they  had  all  the  facts  specifically 
narrated  which  tended  to  establish  the  fact  of  death, 
fully  before  them.  The  very  fact  of  its  assumption 
under  such  circumstances  is  a  fatal  admission. 

We  cannot  fail  to  perceive,  then,  that  the  entire 
range  of  conjecture  has  been  traversed  for  some  plausi- 
ble or  even  possible  mode  of  accounting  for  the  fact  that 
Jesus  died  on  the  cross.  The  Apostles  tell  us  that  he 
died  from  crucifixion,  which  all  the  others  agree  to  have 
been  quite  impossible.  Others  contend  that  natural  or 
acquired  weakness  hastened  his  death.  Others,  that 


WAS    HE    DEAD?  $8$ 

the  spear  thrust  finished  him.  Others,  that  the  maledic- 
tion of  God  for  man's  sins  was  too  strong  for  him  and 
burst  his  heart  open.  Others,  that  God  came  to  the 
rescue.  Others,  that  he  concluded  he  had  suffered 
enough,  and  voluntarily  dismissed  his  own  spirit. 
Others,  that — But  What  other  possible  supposition  is 
left  ?  If  we  have  come  to  the  end,  Is  it  not  because  the 
region  of  supposed  possibilities  has  been  fully  explored  ? 
Seeing  these  exhaustive  and  utterly  fruitless  attempts 
of  the  brightest  intellects^  of  the  Christian  World, 
through  nineteen  centuries,  to  find  a  cause  for  the  death 
of  Jesus  in  the  events  which  occurred  on  Calvary,  with 
a  full  and  detailed  account  of  those  occurrences  before 
them,  Is  it  not  quite  time  we  should  begin  to  inquire 
whether  the  man  really  did  die — whether  this  effect 
without  a  cause  really  existed  ? — something  which  was 
the  first  thing  to  have  been  inquired  into  and  deter- 
mined, but  which  was  in  fact  never  even  questioned 
then,  nor  dared  to  be  questioned  since  ?  Nay,  more,  if 
exhaustive  effort  fails  to  find  in  the  facts  any  adequate 
cause  of  death,  Is  not  the  presumption  almost,  if  not 
quite  resistless,  that  he  did  not  die  ?  For  he  certainly 
could  not  have  died  without  an  adequate  cause.  And, 
unless  the  occurrences  after  he  was  taken  from  the  cross 
show  that  he  actually  had  died,  the  presumption  against 
death  would  be  complete.  Even  if  he  had  been  buried 
immediately  after  he  was  taken  from  the  cross,  the  cir- 
cumstances would  justify  a  violent  presumption  of  his 
having  been  buried  alive. 

It  is  a  matter  of  significance,  also,  that  such  a  host 
of  the  champions  of  the   infallibility  of  the  Apostles 


586  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

should  have  been  driven  to  disregard  their  plainly  ex- 
pressed doctrines  on  this  fundamental  matter.  However 
widely  they  may  differ  as  to  the  substitutes  they  offer, 
there  is  one  thing  upon  which  they  have  been  compelled 
to  unite,  namely  :  that  the  Apostles  erred  in  supposing 
that  Jesus  died  from  the  punishment  of  crucifixion. 
That,  at  least,  was  deemed  too  contrary  to  all  reason  and 
human  experience  to  attempt  to  sustain  it.  Nor  are 
they  less  fortunate  in  demolishing  the  various  theories 
propounded  by  each  other  as  substitutes  for  that  of  the 
Apostles.  Their  theories  are  mutually  exclusive  and 
thoroughly  destructive  of  each  other.  Each  repudiates, 
as  wholly  untenable,  every  theory  but  his  own  ;  so 
that,  upon  authority,  each  theory  stands  supported  in 
the  ratio  of  one  to  all,  and  stands  refuted  or  discredited 
in  the  ratio  of  all  to  one.  And  really  there  is  not  a 
shadow  of  doubt,  that  the  opposition  majority  have,  in 
every  instance,  as  great  a  triumph  in  reason  as  in  num- 
bers. Their  success  in  demolishing  the  theories  of  each 
other  is  only  equalled  by  their  impotent  zeal  in  main- 
taining their  own.  They  not  only  clear  the  ground  from 
the  obstructions  of  all  other  theories,  but  severally  fur- 
nish their  quota  of  facts  and  arguments  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  our  own  theory.  The  Apostles  are  our  au- 
thority for  saying  that,  if  Jesus  died  on  Calvary,  he  did 
not  die  from  either  supernatural  causes  or  any  of  the 
natural  causes  which  have  been  assigned,  save  that  of 
crucifixion.  The  whole  phalanx  of  distinguished  au- 
thors and  fathers  of  the  church  whom  we  have  named, 
are  our  authority  for  saying  that  he  did  not  die  by  the 
pains  of  crucifixion.  Those  who  contend  that  he  died 
by  the  spear  wound  sustain  us  in  saying  that  up  to  his 


WAS    HE    DEAD?  587 

last  moments  on  the  cross  he  was  in  a  faint,  but  vital 
condition;  while  the  suggestion  that  he  died  by  the 
spear  wound  was  never  thought  of  by  the  Apostles,  and 
is  stoutly  denied  by  all  the  supporters  of  other  theories. 
Thus  we  have  ample  authority  and  proofs  furnished  by 
the  defenders  of  his  death,  to  prove  that  he  did  not  die 
at  all,  but  went  into  the  hands  of  Joseph  of  Arimathea 
alive.  Let  us  not  content  ourselves,  however,  without  a 
summary  review  of  the  evidence  in  the  case,  preceding 
his  reappearance,  from  our  own  stand-point  of  continued 
life. 


588  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

THEORY    OF    CONTINUED    LIFE. 

HAVING  contested  the  theory  of  death,  let  us  ex- 
amine that  of  life.  The  theory  of  continued  life,  in  this 
case,  has  nothing  to  prove.  Such  presumption  of  death 
as  would  arise  from  the  bare  fact  of  a  capital  judgment 
and  pretended  execution,  ceases  to  be  operative  where  the 
very  facts  of  the  execution  are  known  and  under  discus- 
sion. That  presumption  also  arises  only  by  reason  of  the 
supposition  that  the  executive  officers  would  be  disposed 
to  faithfully  execute  the  sentence.  Any  such  inference  is 
excluded  here  by  the  plain  fact  that  the  executive  officer 
was  violently  opposed  to  the  sentence,  and,  under  the 
circumstances,  must  have  regarded  it  his  true  duty  to 
evade,  rather  than  fatally  execute  it.  Besides  all  this, 
the  amount  of  punishment  was,  not  only  by  Christian 
authority  and  fact,  but  by  the  confession  of  the  chief 
executive  officer  himself,  admitted  and  shown  to  be  pre- 
sumptive of  continued  life  and  not  death.  For  Pilate 
regarded  death  under  such  circumstances  as  a  "marvel- 
lous "  matter,  and  therefore  a  very  z^wpresumable  one. 
But,  as  this  presumption  does  not  arise,  and,  if  it  did,  is 
at  once  set  aside,  we  must  necessarily  revert  to  the 
original  presumption  that,  having  been  in  full  life  and 


THEORY    OF    CONTINUED    LIFE.  589 

vigor,  he  continued  in  life,  and  would  so  continue,  until 
his  actual  death  were  proved,  or  a  cause  were  shown 
which  would  necessarily  result  in  death. 

Besides  this  antecedent  presumption  of  continued  life, 
there  is  another  retroactive  presumption  of  continued  life 
which  is  absolutely  irrebuttable  and  conclusive.  The  man 
was  alive  and  vigorous  when  he  went  upon  the  cross. 
There  is  nothing  to  rebut  or  overthrow  the  presumption 
that  he  entered  the  sepulchre  alive  that  evening,  with- 
out resorting  to  the  powerful  array  of  affirmative  evi- 
dence in  support  of  that  conclusion.  But  then  comes 
the  overwhelming  and  resistless  fact  that  he  was  actually 
in  full  life  on  the  second  morning  afterwards.  Is  not 
this  fact,  in  itself,  conclusive  proof  that  the  man  had  not 
been  dead,  even  if  the  evidences  of  death  had  been  a 
thousand-fold  stronger  than  they  are  claimed  to  have 
been  ?  Dare  we  admit  appearances  of  any  kind  or  the 
^opinions  of  any  number  of  men  to  prove  that  a  man  who 
is  in  full  life  to-day,  was  absolutely  dead  yesterday  ?  Or, 
that  a  man  who  is  actually  dead  can,  while  dead,  exert  a 
power  over  his  own  dead  and  extinguished  life,  in  con- 
travention of  the  fundamental  nature  and  laws  of  human 
life  ?  When  it  is  asserted  on  the  one  hand  that  a  man 
died,  and  on  the  other  hand  that  he  was  living  after- 
wards, the  issue  is  direct  and  the  contradiction  complete. 
Both  cannot  be  true.  Where  the  fact  of  the  subsequent 
living  is  not  clearly  asserted  on  the  trial  of  such  an  is- 
sue, then  it  is  competent  for  us  to  still  consider  the 
evidences  of  death  by  way  of  impugning  the  credibility 
of  the  testimony  in  favor  of  the  fact  of  subsequent  life. 
But  when  it  is  proved  -beyond  doubt,  that  the  man  was 


59O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

actually  alive  subsequently  to  his  alleged  death,  then  all 
proof  of  real  death  becomes  impossible,  and  all  evidences 
of  apparent  death,  however  backed  by  opinions  or  au- 
thority, become  useless.  In  the  absence,  then,  of  all 
evidences  favorable  to  a  continuance  of  life  and  of  all 
other  proofs  of  the  weakness  or  insufficiency  of  the  evi- 
dences of  the  fact  of  death,  it  is  precisely  as  certain  that 
Jesus  did  not  die  on  the  cross  as  it  is  that  he  was  seen 
alive  afterwards.  The  latter  fact  irrebuttably  implies 
the  former.  And  just  to  the  extent  that  we  make  it  cer- 
tain that  he  was  alive  afterwards,  do  we  enhance  the  cer- 
tainty that  he  was  not  dead  before.  To  prove,  therefore, 
that  he  was  not  dead,  it  is  only  necessary  to  prove  that 
he  was  alive  afterwards.  This  proof  the  simplest  Chris- 
tian alive  would  consider  ample  to  hang  even  his  own 
brother  were  his  guilt  dependent  upon  it.  Nor.  would 
any  rational  being  ever  even  question  the  survival  and 
continued  life  of  any  other  man  who  ever  lived,  with 
positive  proof  of  only  this  single  fact  of  his  being  actu- 
ally alive  after  his  supposed  death. 

Why  should  we  then  hesitate  to  affirm  and  believe  in 
this  case,  as  we  should  in  every  other  case,  that  this  single 
fact  of  after-life,  alone,  is  conclusive  proof  that  the  sup- 
position that  Jesus  had  died  previously  was  a  mistake  ? 
Certainly  there  can  be  no  cause  to  make  even  a  Chris- 
tian hesitate,  save  such  as  have  arisen  out  of  a  belief  in 
his  divinity.  Thoroughly  divest  any  rational  Christian 
of  that  notion  and  the  notions  dependent  on  it,  and  he 
would  not  hesitate  a  moment  in  his  conclusion  upon 
such  evidence.  But,  Have  they  any  logical  right  to 
make  this  assumption  in  favor  of  this  fact  while  testing 


THEORY    OF    CONTINUED    LIFE.  59! 

the  very  existence  of  the  fact  of  his  divinity  itself  ?  Are 
they  not  assuming  his  divinity  to  establish  or  defend  the 
very  fact  upon  which  his  divinity  depends  ?  If  Jesus  was 
not  dead,  then  he  did  not  arise  from  the  dead  ;  and,  as 
Paul  said,  £11  their  preaching  "  is  vain."  Nothing  is  more 
certain  than  that  the  belief  in  his  divinity  arose  from,  and 
was  dependent  upon,  the  supposed  fact  of  his  resurrec- 
tion ;  which,  in  its  turn,  was  dependent  upon  the  fact  of 
his  having  been  actually  dead.  The  supposed  miracles 
which  he  had  worked  may  have  operated  on  his  dis- 
ciples as  evidence  of  his  being  the  Messiah,  and,  subse- 
quently, as  confirmation  of  his  divinity,  but  the  belief  in 
his  divinity  neither  could,  nor  did,  arise  out  of  those  per- 
formances. For  the  power  to  work  miracles  was  not  re- 
garded as  any  evidence  of  a  divine  nature,  or  even  of  a 
good  one.  Nor  was  it  ever  supposed  that  the  Jewish 
Messiah  was  to  be  God.  Nor  is  there  the  slightest 
doubt  of  the  fact  that  the  Apostles  did  not  entertain 
the  slighest  idea  that  Jesus  was  God,  incarnate  or  other- 
wise, until  after  his  resurrection,  and  then  only  by  rea- 
son of  that  very  fact, — as  we  have  already  seen,  and 
shall  still  further  see  as  we  advance.  They  themselves 
declare  to  Jesus  himself  that  they  had  regarded  him 
only  as  a  "  prophet,"  and  that,  until  he  was  arrested 
and  crucified,  they  had  "  hoped  "  that  it  was  he  that 
should  have  redeemed  Israel — that  is,  they  had  hoped 
that  Jesus  was  to  be  the  temporal  Messiah  until  his 
death  had  put  an  end  to  their  hopes.  It  is  clear,  there- 
fore, that  in  allowing  the  divine  or  supernatural  preten- 
sions of  Jesus  to  make  us  assume  his  otherwise  improb- 
able and,  indeed,  disproved  death,  we  are  reasoning  in  a 
vicious  circle— assuming  a  man  to  be  a  God,  for  the 


592  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

purpose  of  proving  the  essential  facts  which  originated 
and  supported  his  pretensions  to  be  a  God.  Even  the 
obtusest  mind  must  perceive  that  such  a  mode  of  reason- 
ing is  fatal  to  truth,  even  if  we  had  not  already  shown 
the  utter  hollowness  of  his  pretensions  to  even  miracu- 
lous power,  and  much  more  to  divinity.  Are  rational 
men  prepared  to  thus  irrationally  blind  themselves  to 
the  truth  for  the  mere  sake  of  the  gratifications  furnished 
by  the  delusion  ?  If  we  are  not,  How  stands  our  affirma- 
tion of  the  continued  life  of  Jesus  on  the  cross  and  in 
the  sepulchre  ?  Does  it  not  stand  proved,  from  the 
very  beginning,  by  evidence  which  is  exactly  as  con- 
clusive as  the  evidence  of  the  supposed  resurrection  or 
the  fact  that  he  was  afterwards  alive, — nay,  more,  upon 
the  identical  evidence  ?  And  as  that  evidence  has  been 
regarded  ample  for  the  support  of  so  incredible  a  fact  as 
the  resurrection,  may  it  not,  a  fortiori,  prove  the  natural, 
and  by  no  means  wonderful,  fact  of  his  natural  survival, 
which  avoids  the  necessity  of  either  discrediting  the  wit- 
nesses or  of  conceding  so  impossible  a  fact  as  self-res- 
urrection from  actual  death  ?  Can  we  be  mistaken  in 
saying  that,  were  not  this  old  mistake  so  fossilized  by 
time,  so  hallowed  by  education,  so  venerated  by  use 
and  association,  so  endeared  by  the  hopes  of  its  be- 
lievers, and  so  guarded  by  the  terrors  of  the  cerberus  of 
Superstition,  it  would  melt  away  before  this  single  proof 
like  frost  before  the  sun  ?  Ignorance  accepted  the  as- 
sumption of  the  impossible  fact  :  the  assumed  fact  apoth- 
eosized Jesus  :  and  now  the  apotheosis  and  the  terrors 
of  hell  guard  the  impossible  fact  !  The  world  is  full  of 
such  errors,  thus  sanctified  and  guarded.  Future  and 
disenthralled  generations  will  look  back  upon  them  with 


THEORY    OF    CONTINUED    LIFE.  593 

the  amazed  pity  with  which  we  now  look  back  upon 
astrology,  alchemy,  witchcraft,  lycanthropy  and  devil- 
possession. 

Not  suffering  ourselves,  however,  to  rest  upon  this 
resistless  proof,  we  have  taken  the  pains  to  review  the 
entire  transaction,  and  to  show  that  the  entire  evidence 
preceding  and  accompanying  the  crucifixion,  not  only 
conforms  to,  and  confirms  the  fact  which  this  resistless 
proof  establishes,  but,  of  itself,  presumptively  proves  the 
same  fact,  as  clearly  as  it  could  be  proved  in  the  absence 
of  this  last  and  conclusive  fact.  And  when  we  shall 
have  digested  these  proofs  from  our  own  stand-point,  we 
shall  further  show  that  all  the  subsequent  facts,  over 
and  above  the  mere  fact  of  his  reappearance,  point  even 
more  directly  and  conclusively  to  our  conclusion,  than 
even  those  we  have  already  considered. 


Webster  defines  death  as  that  state  "  in  which  there 
is  a  total  cessation  of  all  the  vital  functions,  when  the 
organs  have  not  only  ceased  to  act,  but  have  lost  the  sus- 
ceptibility of  renewed  action''  That  is  to  say,  that  the 
peculiar  and  essential  characteristic  of  death  is  not 
merely  the  suspension  or  cessation  of  the  vital  functions 
from  temporary  paralysis  or  derangement  of  the  phys- 
ical organism  or  any  defect  in  the  supply  of  the  vital 
forces  or  conditions,  but  is  that  state  of  things  that  ren- 
ders it  impossible  to  restore  vital  action  by  natural 
means.  To  be  dead,  a  man  must  be  in  a  condition  in- 

38 


594  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

compatible  with  life,  and  one  which  no  natural  condi- 
tions or  agencies  can  restore  or  remedy.  No  fact  is 
more  difficult  to  verify  than  that  of  death.  Even  now, 
in  this  nineteenth  century,  there  is  a  standing  reward 
offered  for  the  discovery  of  an  infallible  test.  Life  is  only 
manifested  to  the  observer  by  its  sensuous  manifesta- 
tions, and  when  these  cease  or  become  imperceptible, 
there  is  apparent  death; — a  state  which  may  be,  or  may 
not  be,  real  death.  The  decision  of  this  fact  often  de- 
fies the  skill,  even  of  experts,  for  a  considerable  time. 
Various  vital  conditions  so  completely  resemble  that  of 
death,  that  physicians  alone  are  capable  of  distinguish- 
ing them.  Even  they  sometimes  fail  or  err  ;  while  the 
ordinary  observer  is  quite  incompetent  to  give  any  re- 
liable decision  upon  the  question.  Such  cases  are  con- 
stantly coming  to  the  notice  of  the  public.  Such  states 
of  assimilated  or  apparent  death  not  only  result  from 
natural  causes  unaided  by  man,  but  are  capable  of  being 
produced  by  bodily  conditions  resulting  from  drugs  or 
inflictions  administered  by  man.  The  East  has  imme- 
morially  produced  drugs  with  this  powerful  and  peculiar 
property.  No  cause  is  more  prolific  of  such  results 
than  various  forms  of  bodily  torture.  As  we  have  seen, 
it  is  an  ordinary  and  natural  result  of  prolonged  torture 
such  as  results  from  crucifixion.  It  is  known,  also,  that 
such  results  are  more  likely  to  occur  to  such  highly 
nervous  organizations  as  that  of  Jesus,  and  to  occur  in 
more  singular,  striking  and  prolonged  modes.  We 
know,  alsOj  that,  although  no  definite  limit  can  be  as- 
signed to  the  duration  of  such  states  of  apparent 
death,  it  is  by  no  means  singular  that  an  organization 
such  as  that  of  Jesus,  after  swooning  from  the  effects  of 


THEORY    OF    CONTINUED    LIFE.  595 

continued  torture,  should  remain  in  that  state  of  insen- 
sibility for  several  hours — should  remain,  in  fact,  for  a 
much  longer  time  than  Jesus  remained  on  the  cross  after 
the  ninth  hour.  It  is.  apparent,  also,  that  drugs  might 
not  only  have  been  administered  to  Jesus  which  would, 
of  themselves,  have  subdued  the  vital  action  and  pro- 
•  duced  a  semblance  of  death,  but  they  might  have  been 
given  when  the  sufferer  was  on  the  point  of  swooning, 
with  the  view,  and  with  the  effect,  of  aiding  the  state  of 
insensibility  produced  by  the  anticipated  swooning,  and 
thus  assure  the  continuance  of  the  state  of  insensibility. 
In  attempting  to  show,  then,  that  Jesus  continued  in  life 
when  he  was  reported  to  be  dead,  or  even  when  he  was 
actually  supposed  to  be  dead,  we  are  attempting  to  show 
no  improbable  or  incredible  fact,  but  one  which  has  often 
proved  true  under  evidences  of  death  immeasurably 
more  cogent  and  reliable  than  they  were  in  this  case. 
We  affirm,  therefore,  that  the  state  of  Jesus  on  the 
cross  after  the  ninth  hour, — which  no  mortal  has  been 
able  to  even  plausibly  explain  and  account  for  as  that  of 
death,  and  which  was  afterwards  positively  shown  to  be 
not  that  of  death, — was,  in  truth,  but  a  prolonged  swoon 
induced  by  the  torture  of  his  punishment,  and  perhaps 
aided  by  drugs  supplied  in  the  so-called  drink  of  vinegar. 
But  this  latter  suggestion,  we  beg  leave  to  say,  was 
neither  originated  by  our  fancy,  nor  urged  by  its  neces- 
sity to  our  view  of  the  case  ;  since  it  is  by  no  means  im- 
portant to  our  conclusions.  It  would  not  have  been 
mentioned,  indeed,  had  we  not  desired  to  present  the 
case  as  it  is  made  probable  from  the  evidence.  That 
evidence,  we  think,  points,  with  sufficient  certainty  for 
notice,  to  the  fact  that  some  preparation  was  made 


596  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

especially  for  his  benefit,  and  was  actually  administered 
at  the  critical  moment  with  a  view  to  his  ultimate  pres- 
ervation. 


It  is  very  clear,  that  the  entire  evidence  from  the  ar- 
rest of  Jesus  until  his  delivery  to  Joseph  of  Arimathea, 
when  taken  from  the  cross,  has  been  shown  to  be  very 
incompatible  with  the  supposition  of  his  actual  death  on 
the  cross ;  and  it  is  equally  clear  that  it  furnishes  most 
potent  and  cumulative  evidences  that  Jesus  would  and 
did  survive  his  punishment.  And  the  general  tenor  of 
the  facts  show,  that  this  result  was  both  designed  and 
aided  by  those  who  held  control  over  him  and  his  pun- 
ishment. We  have  seen  from  the  evidence,  that  there 
were  many  and  powerful  motives  for  saving  the  life  of 
Jesus,  on  the  part  of  the  Roman  officials  who  had  control 
over  his  person  and  destiny,  and  that  equal,  if  not  iden- 
tical motives  urged  the  assistance  and  co-operation  of 
secret  friends  or  coadjutors  of  Jesus  among  the  official 
and  wealthy  Jews.  We  have  seen,  that  these  friends 
within  the  circles  of  Jewish  and  Roman  power  had  kept 
him  advised  of  the  movements  against  him,  and  had 
evidently  notified  him  of  his  intended  betrayal.  We 
find  striking  evidences  of  their  having  communicated 
with  him  in  Gethsemane.  We  find  them  making  ex- 
haustive efforts  to  save  him  on  his  trial.  And  after 
Pilate  was  humiliatingly  driven  to  consent  to  his  con- 
demnation, while  still  solemnly  and  publicly  denouncing 
the  iniquity  of  his  own  coerced  sentence,  and  publicly 


THEORY    OF    CONTINUED    LIFE.  597 

washing  his  hands  of  the  injustice  of  it,  we  find  his 
friends,  both  Jewish  and  Roman,  still  following  him  up 
with  many  evidences  of  the  same  persistent  and  predeter- 
mined purpose  to  do  their  utmost  to  serve  and  save  him 
after  the  sentence,  which  they  had  exhibited  on  his 
trial.  We  have  seen,  that  they  could  not  but  regard  it 
as  a  solemn  duty  to  save  him  if  possible.  We  have  seen, 
that  they  had  the  entire  control  of  his  person  and  destiny 
from  first  to  last ;  and  that  their  power  to  save  him  was 
equal  to  their  inclination, — subject  only  to  a  single  fear; 
and  that,  although  this  fear  had  compelled  his  sentence 
to  the  cross,  and  compelled  them  to  act  with  sufficient 
secrecy  to  prevent  proof  of  their  complicity  in  his  escape, 
still  this  fact  neither  lessened  their  duty,  their  zeal, 
nor  their  power  to  save  him  from  actual  death,  but  only 
spurred  them  to  more  determined  efforts. 

We  have  seen,  also,  that  circumstances  marvellously 
aided  them  ;  that  it  was  next  to  impossible  for  him  to 
expire  on  the  cross  before  the  time  he  would  be  required 
to  be  despatched  on  account  of  the  approaching  sabbath, 
and  that,  if  they  could  but  avoid  this  necessity  of  de- 
spatching him  by  a  reported  and  seeming  death,  and  by 
then  getting  him  out  of  sight  of  the  public  finally,  their 
end  would  be  accomplished.  To  this  end  we  have  seen 
every  act  of  those  who  controlled  or  were  concerned  in 
the  proceedings  unmistakably  tended,  from  first  to  last, 
as  far  as  was  consistent  with  the  necessary  forms  of  his 
punishment,  whether  they  were  intended  so  to  operate 
or  not.  We  have  seen  extraordinary  pains  taken  to 
keep  him  free  from  over  prostration  before  his  punish- 
ment, and  that  he  himself  co-operated  in  this  apparent 


598  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

pre-arrangement  and  purpose  by  refusing  to  drink  the 
"  mercy  cup,"  by  which  he  would  at  once  keep  his  mind 
clear  to  act  his  part,  and  render  himself  liable  to  swoon 
far  earlier  than  were  he  to  deaden  his  sensibilities  by 
that  soporific  drink.  This  refusal  of  relief  from  suffer- 
ing, and  courting  anguish,  by  one  who  had  so  often  ex- 
hibited his  dread  of  danger  and  his  fearful  dread  of  suf- 
fering and  death,  was  especially  remarkable,  and  can 
find  no  rational  and  consistent  explanation  save  in  con- 
nection with  his  own  ultimate  preservation.  We  have 
seen,  also,  a  further  and  very  striking  evidence  of  some 
unusual  design  and  of  the  concurrence-  of  Jesus  in  that 
design,  in  the  fact  that  they  had  had  prepared  and  ready 
for  use  some  unusual  drink  for  the  especial  benefit  of 
Jesus,  and  were  ready  with  all  the  facilities  for  adminis- 
tering it,  to  give  it  to  him  the  instant  he  gave  the  warn- 
ing call,  and  actually  "  run  "  to  him  with  it.  The  fact 
that  all  this  should  have  been  pre-arranged  and  provided 
for,  that  Jesus  should  so  evidently  have  understood  it 
and  called  for  it,  while  having  no  legal  right  to  expect 
such  a  favor,  and  the  extreme  promptitude  with  which  it 
was  served,  are  as  significant  as  they  were  unusual. 
What  did  that  drink  consist  of  ?  For  what  purpose,  and 
by  whose  authority,  was  it  prepared  and  administered  ? 
These  were  secrets  which  few  could  know  and  which 
have  long  since  perished.  They  can  only  be  inferen- 
tially  judged  of  now.  That  they  were  prepared  with  a 
view  to  serve  Jesus  is  beyond  reasonable  question. 
How  they  were  to  serve  him  can  only  be  inferred  from 
the  general  purpose  and  end  indicated  by  the  whole  evi- 
dence and  by  the  apparent  results  or  effects  of  the  drink 
itself.  If  it  had  been  vinegar  or  any  drink  which  would 


THEORY    OF    CONTINUED    LIFE 

have  relieved  the  thirst  of  which  Jesus  complained,  it 
would  have  operated  to  refresh  and  revive  him.  Instead 
of  doing  this,  however,  Jesus  said,  directly  after  drink- 
ing it — "  It  is  finished  "  or  accomplished ;  and  very  soon 
dropped  into  that  state  of  insensibility  in  which  he  con- 
tinued while  on  the  cross,  and  which  served  as  the  basis 
of  the  announcement  that  he  was  dead.  The  effects 
which  followed,  therefore,  were  indicative  of  anything 
but  a  reviving  drink.  To  the  very  reverse  of  this,  the 
whole  facts  about  the  providing  and  administering  this 
drink  and  the  effects  which  followed  it,  are  certainly  in- 
dicative of  its  having  been  given  to  produce  the  condition 
which  followed,  or  to  aid  in  producing  or  in  prolonging 
and  assuring  it,  and  not  at  all  with  a  view  to  revive  him. 

The  state  of  insensibility  of  Jesus  may  have  been  pro- 
duced by  artificial  means,  and  the  strong  determination 
-to  save  him  evinced  by  those  concerned  in  his  punish- 
ment and  the  fact,  time,  and  mode  of  administering  this 
prepared  drink,  together  with  the  speedy  effects  which 
ensued,  will  warrant  the  conclusion  that  those  results 
were  produced  by  that  prepared  drink,  in  the  absence  of 
stronger  evidence  that  a  similar  state  of  insensibility  was 
produced  chiefly  by  his  condition  and  suffering,  aided, 
prolonged  and  assured,  probably,  by  this  artificial  means. 
That  he  was  not  killed  by  the  punishment  is  made  mor- 
ally certain  by  the  facts  that  occurred,  and  is  rendered 
absolutely  certain  by  the  fact  that  he  was  alive  after- 
wards. The  amount  of  punishment  had  been  wholly 
inadequate  to  menace  the  life  of  any  one  who  was  not 
already  at  the  point  of  death.  For  we  have  shown  that 
it  could  not  have  lasted  even  two  hours.  Sir  James  Y. 


6OO  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

Simpson,  as  we  have  seen,  considered  it  impossible  that 
he  could  have  died  from  crucifixion,  assuming  it  to  have 
lasted  six  hours  ;  and  that  death,  in  a  subject  like  Jesus, 
was  not  to  be  expected  under  two  or  three  days.  One 
of  the  wisest  of  the  early  Christian  fathers  declared  that 
death  in  such  a  case  within  three  hours  was  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  "  miracle."  John  Calvin,  as  we  have  seen, 
thought  that  it  was  only  "profane  persons"  who  could 
think  that  a  death  so  "  beyond  all  exception  rapid"  could 
have  happened  without  divine  intervention.  The  very 
truth  is,  that  life  was  not  at  all  endangered  by  the  amount 
of  suffering  inflicted  on  Jesus  by  the  cross.  All  the 
theories  of  death  have  been  shown  to  be  irrational  and 
incredible  make-shifts  to  account  for  an  impossible  fact. 
There  is  nothing  left,  then,  but  to  regard  Jesus  as  either 
having  swooned  at  the  ninth  hour,  or  as  having  fallen 
into  a  state  of  insensibility  from  the  drink  which  had 
been  prepared  for  him.  Without  waiving  the  probability 
of  the  latter  explanation,  there  is  certainly  sufficient 
probability  of  the  former  ;  while,  if  he  swooned  from  the 
torture,  the  administering  of  the  drink  may  have  been 
given  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  or  assuring  the  desired 
end.  The  nature  of  Jesus  was  one  which  would  evi- 
dently swoon  or  faint  early  under  torture,  and  there  were 
other  reasons  which  tended  to  facilitate  that  result. 
While  Jesus  was  unimpaired  in  physical  vigor,  he  had 
undergone  a  severe  strain  on  his  nerves  in  Gethsemane. 
And,  although  his  nervous  system  had  returned  to  a  state 
of  repose  and  became  subject  to  the  Will  during  the  sub- 
sequent proceedings,  yet  those  proceedings  were  not 
calculated  to  encourage  that  repose.  The  fair  inference 
is,  that  the  naturally  sensitive  nervous  organization  of 


THEORY    OF    CONTINUED    LIFE.  6oi 

Jesus  was  in  a  condition,  when  he  went  on  the  cross,  to 
be  irritated  more  readily  than  usual  by  torture.  Not 
that  his  nerves  were  permanently  weakened,  but  in  a 
more  irritable  state.  It  was  true,  also,  that  Jesus  had 
not  slept  during  the  preceding  night,  and  it  would  seem 
that  he  had  eaten  nothing  during  that  day.  All  these 
causes  would  tend  to  make  him  faint  earlier  under  his 
torture.  The  fact,  also,  that  he  voluntarily  refused  the 
usual  means  for  so  deadening  his  sensibilities  to  suffer- 
ing as  to  prevent  its  most  overpowering  results,  directly 
tended  to  bring  on  early  swooning ; — so  strongly,  indeed, 
that  it  indicated  a  design  to  bring  about  that  very  result. 
It  is  clear,  then,  that  the  facts,  as  well  as  the  manifested 
purpose  and  design,  tended  to  bring  about,  not  death, 
but  a  state  of  insensibility  which  resembled  death  under 
ordinary  observation. 


In  this  -state  of  insensibility  he  remained,  so  far  as 
we  either  are,  -or  were  likely  to  have  been  informed. 
For,  of  course,  no  fact  indicating  continued  life  would 
have  been  allowed  to  reach  the  ears  of  outsiders  since 
it  would  have  destroyed  all  pretence  of  a  defence  for 
refusing  to  despatch  Jesus  with  the  rest.  When  he  had 
remained  in  this  state  about  an  hour  and  a  half,  the  ap- 
proach of  the  sabbath  compelled  them  to  stop  the  cru- 
cifixion and  despatch  the  prisoners  by  violence.  This 
they  accordingly  did  in  the  case  of  each  of  the  other 
prisoners,  neither  of  whom  had  shown  any  signs  of  giv- 
ing way.  But  here  again  we  meet  with  a  chain  of  facts 


6O2  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

which,  if  it  were  needed,  renders  the  evidence  of  the  in- 
tention and  effort  to  save  Jesus  conclusive,  in  connec- 
tion with  the  other  proofs.  When  he  had  swooned  or 
became  insensible,  the  Centurion  assumed  that  he  was 
dead,  and,  we  are  told,  publicly  declared  to  the  super- 
stitious multitude,  in  view  of  so  miraculous  a  death,  that 
Jesus  must  have  indeed  been  the  Son  of  God.  The 
people  then  left,  and  the  Roman  guard  and  a  few  Gali- 
lean friends  of  Jesus — (who  stood  "  afar  off,")  remained 
to  witness  what  occurred  afterwards, — and  one  other. 
It  would  seem  clear  from  all  the  facts,  that  Joseph  of 
Arimathea  was  still  present  during  all,  or  the  greater 
part  of  the  proceedings.  For  he  must  have  been  there 
and  consulted  with  the  Centurion  when  they  both 
started  to  go  to  Pilate  and  report  the  death  of  Jesus, 
and  to  have  an  order  for  his  delivery  to  Joseph,  and 
'thus  avoid  the  necessity  of  despatching  him  with  the 
others.  This  acute  and  wealthy  Jewish  friend  or  coad- 
jutor of  Jesus  seems  to  have  continued  to  watch  over 
and  direct  the  results  to  the  last,  and  to  have  acted  in 
secret  concert  with  his  Roman  friends.  Joseph  and  the 
Centurion  must  have  returned  to  the.  city  to  "report 
progress "  to  Pilate  very  soon  after  the  people  left. 
Joseph  is  said  to  have  gone  "  boldly," — that  is,  with 
confidence,  to  Pilate  to  request  the  delivery  of  Jesus 
into  his  hands.  Why  such  boldness  and  confidence 
in  making  so  unprecedented  a  request  ?  And,  Why 
the  unprecedented  success  of  that  request,  unless  the 
two  were  acting  in  concert  ?  Had  there  been  no  such 
concert  of  action  between  them  and  no  intention  to 
save  Jesus,  this  effort  would  never  have  been  made  ;  or, 
if  made,  could  never  have  been  made  with  confidence, 


THEORY    OF    CONTINUED    LIFE.  603 

or  have  proved  successful.  His  body  would  have  been 
claimed  in  such  case,  as  in  all  other  cases,  after  his  full 
execution  was  completed  ;  and  the  executioner  would 
not  have  interfered  in  the  matter.  And  Pilate  would 
not  have  consented  to  waive  the  legal  course  on  account 
of  a  pretended  death  which  was  so  "  marvellous  "  as  he 
himself  claimed  this  to  have  been.  For  no  sufficient 
reason  or  motive  could  be  assigned  for  such  a  course. 
Whether  he  were  dead  or  alive  the  regular  course  could 
not  injure  him  beyond  what  his  sentence  required.  To 
break  his  limbs  when  dead,  wantonly,,  would  be  a  brutal 
act ;  but  to  break  them  in  the  due  course  of  legal  execu- 
tion, even  if  he  happened  to  be  dead,  could  neither  be 
wrong,  nor  cause  suffering  to  Jesus.  No : — there  could 
have  been  but  one  adequate  cause  for  this  confident 
application  and  this  wholly  unusual  delivery  of  the  pris- 
oner to  his  friend  without  despatching  him  in  the  usual 
form.  That  cause  was  not  a  belief  that  he  was  dead, 
but  a  knowledge  that  he  was  alive  ;  and  the  object  was 
to  keep  him  alive,  by  neglecting  to  despatch  him  under 
the  pretence  that  he  was  dead.  It  was  to  save  himself 
from  this  violent  presumption,  that  Pilate  felt  it  neces- 
sary to  shield  himself  by  the  official  report  of  death  from 
the  Centurion.  With  this,  as  the  best  excuse  to  be 
had,  he  dared  to  venture  the  consequences.  So  aston- 
ishing did  this  conduct  of  the  Roman  officials,  in  refus- 
ing to  despatch  Jesus  like  the  rest,  appear  to  John  Cal- 
vin, that  he  declares  it  an  "  extraordinary  operation  of 
divine  providence"  and  says  that  ".  whosoever  examines 
the  whole  series  of  the  narrative  will  be  compelled  to 
ascribe  the  exemption  of  Christ  from  the  breaking  of 
the  legs,  by  a  death  beyond  all  exception  rapid,  to  the 


604  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

secret  councils  of  God."  From  his  own  stand-point  Mr. 
Calvin  reasoned  correctly.  \  Regarding  the  officers  as 
intending,  in  good  faith,  to  execute  the  sentence  against 
Jesus,  he  could  find  every  reason  why  they  should  have 
treated  Jesus  like  the  others,  but  could  find  no  reason 
why  they  should  have  made  this  astounding  exemption 
in  his  favor  on  account  of  an  alleged  death  so  beyond 
"  all  exception  rapid."  Finding  this  mysterious  and  un- 
accountable course,  he  could  only  conceive  that  it  had 
occurred  through  the  inscrutable  intervention  of  God. 
There  was,  very  manifestly,  some  secret  work  and 
"  secret  councils  "  at  the  bottom  of  all  this,  which  did 
not  appear  to  the  public  then,  and  which  only  inferen- 
tially  appear  from  the  Gospels  now.  Had  Mr.  Calvin 
changed  his  stand-point  to  that  which  is  so  clearly  the 
true  one  from  all  the  evidence — had  he,  instead  of  con- 
ceiving Jesus  to  have  been  dead,  conceived  him  to  have 
continued  in  life,  and  had  he,  instead  of  supposing  that 
the  Roman  officials  were  bent  on  destroying  the  life  of 
Jesus,  supposed  that  they  well  knew  that  he  had  not 
really  died,  and  were  determined  that  he  should  not  die, 
then  he  would  have  had  no  difficulty  in  discovering  that 
they  had  the  most  palpable  reason  for  not  despatching 
him  like  the  others,  whom  they  really  intended  to  kill  ; 
nor  would  he  have  had  to  resort,  for  causes  of  this  un- 
precedented favoritism,  to  the  secret  and  incomprehen- 
sible councils  of  God  ;  but  he  would  have  found  very 
comprehensible  causes,  operating  very  efficiently  through 
the  secret  councils  of  men.  Mystery  and  the  mysterious 
special  interferences  of  God  with  the  actions  and  affairs 
of  men  always  vanish  before  the  light  of  the  full  facts 
and  the  real  truth.  Whenever  a  fact  constituting  a  part 


THEORY    OF    CONTINUED    LIFE.  605 

of  an  actual  transaction  is  found  to  be  utterly  inexplic- 
able or  mysterious  upon  received  notions  or  theories  of 
the  transaction, — when  the  apparent  facts  and  the  con- 
duct of  the  actors  are  known, — then  the  accepted  the- 
ories and  notions  should  at  once  be  suspected ;  and  it  is 
right  at  these  mysterious  and  inexplicable  facts,  that  we 
should  pause  with  the  highest  hope  of  a  successful  so- 
lution and  of  a  true  theory  of  the  facts.  By  inquiring 
of  ourselves  what  facts,  conduct  or  motives  could  ration- 
ally account  for  these  particular  facts,  the  answers  to 
these  inquiries  will  most  likely  furnish  or  suggest  an 
explanation  which  will  embrace,  and  apply  to,  the  whole 
facts.  We  find  here,  as  we  have  found  throughout  these 
entire  proceedings,  that  those  facts  which  are  singular, 
unaccountable,  or  mysterious  on  the  received  theories 
of  the  facts,  and  which  those  theories  have  left  unex- 
plained, or  have  been  compelled  to  resort  to  "angel's 
visits "  or  the  "  secret  councils  of  God "  to  explain, 
with  a  view  to  patch  out  their  defective  theories  and 
natural  agencies,  have  found  in  our  theory  of  the  facts 
the  natural  a*nd  consistent  appropriation  and  explana- 
tion which  every  true  theory  must  furnish  for  every 
known  and  established  fact.  To  sustain  the  existing 
notions  about  the  arrest,  trial,  punishment,  death  and 
resurrection  of  Jesus,  the  facts  in  regard  to  them  have 
been  greatly  misrepresented  and  perverted.  This  is  the 
natural  requirement  and  tendency  of  a  false  theory.  If 
the  theory  will  not  conform  to  the  facts,  the  facts  must 
be  warped  into  conformity  with  the  theory.  We  have 
seen  that,  instead  of  requiring  the  facts  to  be  warped  to 
suit  it,  our  theory  has  required  them  to  be  again  un- 
warped ;  and  that  to  the  extent  that  they  have  been  so 


6o6  .;•;     JESUS  AND  RELIGION. 

recovered,  to  that  same  extent  do  they  increase  the  sup- 
ports of  our  theory.  There  is,  indeed,  no  even  highly 
probable  fact,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  this 
affair,  which  cannot  be  clearly  and  naturally  accounted 
for  upon  our  theory  ;  and  no  other  theory  can  even 
approach  so  complete  a  solution.  Our  theory  neither 
claims,  nor  acknowledges  any  mystery  or  supernatural 
agencies  in  any  part  of  the  transaction.  Whatever  mys- 
teries have  hovered  about  this  affair,  have  been  the  re- 
sults of  ignorance  or  misapprehension  of  the  true  state 
of  the  facts  and  of  the  motives,  purposes  and  conduct 
of  the  .persons  who  reallv  directed  and  controlled  the 
course  of  events. 


Before  finally  leaving  the  cross,  we  desire  to  add 
but  a  few  words  in  relation  to  the  puncture  of  the  body 
of  Jesus  with  a  spear.  The  proof  of  that  allegation  is 
wholly  insufficient.  It  is  asserted  but  by  a  single  writer. 
The  three  first  Gospels  mention  no  such  fact,  —  an 
omission  which  can  scarcely  be  accounted  for  if  such 
a  fact  had  existed.  We  have  seen  that  there  were  doc- 
trinal reasons  for  the  insertion  of  this  visible  exhibition 
of  the  real  flesh-and-blood  nature  of  Jesus.  We  find 
that  the  fact  is  asserted  in  a  controversial  spirit,  as  if 
there  were  in  the  mind  -of  the  writer  a  great  desire  to 
produce  belief  of  the  fact,  and  also  an  expectation  that 
it  would  meet  with  opposition  and  denial.  The  writer 
asserts  the  fact  as  usual,  but,  not  satisfied  with  this,  he 
adds,  "  And  he  that  saw  it  bare  record,  and  his  record  is 


THEORY    OF    CONTINUED    LIFE.  6o/ 

true  :  and  he  knoweth  that  he  saith  true,  that  ye  might 
believe.  For  these  things  were  done,  that  the  Scripture 
should  be  fulfilled,  a  bone  of  him  shall  not  be  broken. 
And  again  another  scripture  saith,  They  shall  look  on 
him  whom  they  pierced?*1  No  such  mode  of  controver- 
sial assertion  and  reiteration  is  used  anywhere  else  in 
the  Gospels.  It  amounts  to  a  confession  that  the  fact 
was  new  to  the  Church,  and  would  be  discredited  ;  and 
openly  confesses  that  one  object  in  asserting  it  was  to 
secure  a  belief  in  this  newly  asserted  fact.  The  object 
of  asserting  it  was  two-fold,  and  the  second  object  is 
exposed  with  the  nakedest  simplicity  : — it  was  done  to 
fulfil  a  scripture,  about  looking  upon  some  one  who  had 
been  pierced.  We  have  seen  how  often  these  attempts 
to  appropriate  and  fulfil  scriptural  types  and  phrases  in 
the  old  Scriptures  have  been  made  in  the  Gospels,  and 
how  uniformly  and  without  exception  they  have  been 
shown  to  have  been  mere  after-creations.  Whenever 
we  find  a  recital  in  the  Gospels  accompanied  by  the 
declaration  that  the  matter  recited  occurred  to  fulfil  a 
scripture,  then,  in  the  language  of  seamen,  we  may 
"look  out  for  foul  weather  :  "  the  sign  never  fails.  We 
have  seen,  also,  how  utterly  out  of  place  such  an  act 
would  have  been,  under  the  circumstances,  and  how  con- 
trary it  would  have  been  both  to  the  duty  and  to  the 
manifested  inclinations  of  those  who  are  asserted  to 
have  done  it.  We  have  seen,  also,  that  it  was  in  conflict 
with  the  assertion  of  the  previous  death  of  Jesus  by 
that  same  Gospel.  If  Jesus  had  died  at  the  ninth  hour, 
and  had  been  dead  for  an  hour  and  a  half  in  that  cool 
weather,  it  is  certain  that  blood  would  not  flow  from  his 
side,  "  forthwith,"  upon  being  punctured  with  a  lance. 


608  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

The  chances  were  a  thousand  fold  that  there  would  not, 
in  such  a  case,  have  been  even  a  "  show  of  blood."  The 
possibility  was,  that,  if  a  vein  of  any  size  was  severed 
near  the  surface  of  the  body,  a  drop  or  two  of  blood 
might  have  sluggishly  drained  or  oozed  out  by  the  force 
of  gravity.  Without  rupturing  such  a  vein  no  blood 
would  have  flowed.  The  writer  evidently  did  not  know 
or  think  of  this  fact  when  he  asserted  that  blood  flowed 
"  forthwith  "  out  of  a  fresh  puncture  made  in  the  side  of 
a  body  which  he  had  declared  to  have  been  dead  an  hour 
and  a  half  before,  and  which  had  remained  quiescent  in 
the  cool,  open  air  ever  since.  Had  he  perceived  the 
force  of  the  evidence  which  he  thus  furnished  that  the 
man  was  still  alive  .and  his  blood  still  warm  and  still 
circulating  (even  if  feebly),  he  would  scarcely  have  ven- 
tured to  have  asserted  this  fact,  even  to  "fulfil  a  scrip- 
ture," or  have  been  so  anxious  for  fear  of  its  being  dis- 
believed. While,  therefore,  this  fact  may  aid,  and  cer- 
tainly does  not  weaken,  our  theory,  we  can  but  say,  that 
we  believe  the  whole  matter  to  be  a  controversial  and 
mythic  after-thought.  None  of  the  other  gospels  even 
mention  the  fact  that  John  was  present  at  the  cruci- 
fixion at  all,  although  they  all  name  a  number  of  his  dis- 
ciples as  being  in  the  city.  All  the  other  apostles  were 
in  hiding.  John  alone  claims  to  have  been  present.  The 
others  seem  to  have  never  known  that  fact,  and  it  seems 
not  to  have  entered  into  the  traditions  or  beliefs  of  the 
church  even  in  the  time  of  Luke.  Such  facts  could  not 
have  been  thus  unknown  and  unrecorded. 

Further  proofs  of    this  fact    of  continued  life  will 
accumulate  at  every  step  of  our  advance. 


THE   REVIVAL.  609 


CHAPTER    XX. 

THE     REVIVAL. 

THE  accounts  which  we  have  of  the  occurrences 
between  the  time  of  the  delivery  of  Jesus  to  his  friend 
Joseph  and  his  re-appearance  to  his  followers  are  very 
meagre  and  unreliable, — necessarily  so,  indeed.  For 
even  the  men  who  were  the  chief  witnesses  of  former 
Gospel  facts  were  then  in  hiding,  and  personally  knew 
nothing  of  the  occurrences  themselves  ;  but  were  com- 
pelled to  rely  upon  after  reports  or  rumors  and  on  their 
own  conjectures  as  to  what  actually  occurred.  Such 
evidence,  of  course,  is  entitled  to  little  credit ;  and  all 
the  more  so,  that  those  chiefly  concerned  in  those  trans- 
actions were  compelled  to  conceal  the  true  facts,  and 
were  deeply  interested  in  giving  special  direction  and 
character  to  the  current  rumors  and  reports.  Fortu- 
nately, this  is  of  little  consequence ;  since  none  who  be- 
lieve that  Jesus  entered  that  sepulchre  alive  and  came 
out  of  it  living,  will  ever  suppose  that  he  had  died  in  the 
mean  time  in  the  sepulchre ;  while  all  the  facts  which 
are  necessary  to  a  correct  conclusion  are  so  plainly  in- 
ferable from  the  precedent  and  subsequent  facts  and 
from  the  character,  motives  and  situation  of  the  actors, 
as  to  be  beyond  all  rational  doubt. 

39 


6lO  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

We  are  told  that,  when  Joseph  received  Pilate's  order 
for  the  possession  of  Jesus,  he  procured  a  linen  cloth  to 
wrap  his  naked  person  in  ;  and  that  he  and  Nicodemus 
took  him,  thus  wrapped,  to  a  new  sepulchre,  hewn  out  of 
the  face  of  a  rock,  and  which  had  never  been  used,  be- 
longing to  Joseph  himself.  This  sepulchre  was  "  nigh 
at  hand,"  and  consisted  of  an  excavation  or  small  room 
in  the  rock  large  enough  to  permit  several  people,  at  a 
time,  to  enter  it.  A  few  minutes  after  Jesus  was  taken 
from  the  cross,  he  was  within  this  secret  and  secure 
shelter.  Here  his  friends  could  have  unquestioned  con- 
trol, and  could  use  what  restorative  means  and  processes 
they  chose,  without  the  possibility  of  outside  observa- 
tion. No  place  could  possibly  have  been  more  fortu- 
nate in  its  location  and  character  for  the  successful  ex- 
ecution of  the  purposes  and  plans  of  those  who  conveyed 
him  thither, — namely  :  his  secret  restoration  and  the 
preparations  for  his  escape.  That  the  place  for  his 
crucifixion  should  have  been  selected  so  near  a  sepulchre 
which  was  so  singularly  adapted  to  their  purposes,  and 
one  belonging  to  the  most  active  manager  of  the  scheme, 
is,  in  itself,  so  singular  as  to  suggest  the  idea  of  its  hav- 
ing been  selected  after  a  conference  between  Joseph  and 
Pilate,  and  with  an  express  view  to  this  very  convenience. 

The  time  was  as  fortunate  and  favorable  as  the  place. 
Night  and  the  sabbath  were  just  at  hand  when  he  was 
taken  there,  and  there  were  a  dozen  hours  of  darkness  in 
which  to  work,  to  supply  and  to  prepare.  The  morning 
and  the  succeeding  hours  of  daylight  would  still  be  the 
sabbath,  during  which  this  lonely  sepulchre  would  be  as 
free  from  interruption  and  observation  as  at  night.  Then 


THE    REVIVAL.  6ll 

came  another  night :  and  then,  before  that  night  fully 
closed,  he  was  out  of  the  sepulchre,  and  clothed  and  pre- 
pared for  his  escape.  Thus  the  time  which  he  remained 
at  the  sepulchre  was  about  thirty-six  hours,  or  a  day  and 
a  half,  but,  by  the  Jewish  division  of  time,  it  embraced 
parts  of  three  days — one  whole  sabbath  and  small  frag- 
ments of  the  preceding  and  subsequent  days.  Had 
these  thirty-six  hours  been  three  consecutive  nights 
they  could  scarcely  have  been  more  favorable  for  their 
purposes. 


If  Joseph  and  Nicodemus  had,  or  gave  out  that  they 
had,  procured  a  hundred  pounds  of  myrrh  and;  aloes  for 
his  burial,  they  were  but  acting  in  accordance  with  their 
necessary  plan  of  concealing  the  real  facts  by  acting  in 
conformity  with  the  supposed  facts.  The  commonest 
prudence  would  have  dictated  to  them  to  make  a  show, 
at  least,  of  acting  as  if  he  was  dead.  As  no  one,  how- 
ever, would  open  the  bundle  or  sack  claimed  to  contain 
100  Ibs.  of  myrrh  and  aloes,  or  have  had  any  right  to  do 
so,  or  any  thought  of  questioning  its  contents,  it  would 
also  prove  an  admirable  method  for  at  once  introducing 
a  little  bedding — say  a  couple  of  comforts  or  so — for 
their  prostrated  friend,  with  other  appliances  for  his  res- 
toration and  reinvigoration.  Nothing  could  be  more 
easy  or  more  natural.  However  this  may  be,  it  is  cer- 
tain that,  if  they  ostensibly  acted  in  conformity  with  the 
assumed  fact  of  death,  so  as  not  to  arouse  suspicion  or 
call  attention  by  any  unusual  conduct,  their  opportunity 
of  both  doing  and  furnishing  everything  needed  would 


6l2  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

be  complete.  And  the  previous  foresight,  providence 
and  fidelity  of  these  loyal  Jewish  friends  are  sufficient 
proofs  that  they  did  so,  even  if  subsequent  events  were 
not  also  conclusive  of  that  fact.  Even  on  that  first 
night  they  could  have  used  whatever  means  were  neces- 
sary, if  any,  to  stimulate  and  encourage  his  revival,  sup- 
ply him  with  clothing  and  the  means  of  disguise,  also 
with  sufficient  food  and  water  to  last  him  through  the 
sabbath,  and  agree  to  come  and  release  him  on  the  night 
following ;  and  thus  avoid  the  chance  of  being  out  of 
place  or  being  seen  about  the  sepulchre  on  the  sabbath. 
With  a  comprehension  of  the  facts  as  they  are  gath- 
ered from  the  Gospels  themselves,  none  can  doubt  that 
all  these  things  could  easily  have  been  done  in  one  night, 
and  almost  before  that  night  commenced ;  and  that  he 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  very  men  to  do  it. 


There  is  a  story  in  the  first  Gospel  about  a  Roman 
guard  having  been  placed  around  the  sepulchre  on  the 
day  following  the  crucifixion,  and  about  their  being 
bribed,  etc.,  which  may  demand  notice,  although  it  would 
deserve  none  were  it  supported  only  by  its  own  merits. 
For,  without  excepting  even  the  puerile  and  mythic  fan- 
cies which  created  a  nativity  and  infancy  for  Jesus,  it  is 
the  most  naked  interpolation  or  after-thought  and  the 
most  imbecile  concoction  in  the  whole  Gospels.  It  is  in 
the  following  words : — "  JMow  the  next  day  that  followed 
the  day  of  the  preparation,  the  chief  priests  and  Phar- 
isees came  together  unto  Pilate,  saying,  Sir,  we  remem- 


THE    REVIVAL. 

her  that  this  deceiver  said,  while  he  was  yet  alive,  After 
three  days  I  will  arise  again.  Command  therefore  that 
the  sepulchre  be  made  sure  until  the  third  day,  lest  his 
disciples  ci>me  by  night  and  steal  him  away,  and  say  unto 
the  people,  He  is  risen  from  the  dead :  So  the  last  error 
shall  be  worse  than  the  first.  Pilate  said  unto  them,  Ye 
have  a  watch :  go  your  way,  make  it  as  sure  as  ye  can. 
So  they  went,  and  made  the  sepulchre  sure,  sealing  the 
stone  and  setting  a  watch.  *  *  And  behold,  there 
was  a  great  earthquake :  for  the  angel  of  the  Lord  de- 
scended from  heaven,  and  came  and  rolled  away  the 
stone  from  the  door,  and  sat  upon  it.  His  countenance 
was  like  lightning,  and  his  raiment  like  snow  :  And  for 
fear  of  him  the  keepers  did  shake,  and  became  as  dead 
men.  *  *  *  Now  when  they  [the  two  Marys]  were 
going  [to  the  sepulchre],  behold,  some  of  the  watch  came 
into  the  city,  and  shewed  unto  the  chief  priests  all  the 
.things  that  were  done.  And  when  they  were  assembled 
with  the  elders,  and  had  taken  counsel,  they  gave  large 
money  unto  the  soldiers,  saying,  Say  ye,  His  disciples 
came  by  night,  and  stole  him  away  while  we  slept.  And 
if  this  come  to  the  governor's  ears,  we  will  persuade 
him,  and  secure  you.  So  they  took  the  money,  and  did 
as  they  were  taught :  and  this  saying  is  commonly  re- 
ported, among  the  Jews  to  this  day."  This  is  all  that 
relates  to  the  matter.  Permit  us  to  briefly  examine  its 
credibility,  as  well  as  its  effect  upon  our  theory  of  the 
facts,  if  it  were  even  true. 

As  in  nearly  all  such  interpolations  or  injections  of 
subsequently  conceived  explanations  or  occurrences,  this 
story  bears  on  its  face  the  evidences  of  its  origin  and 


614  JESUS   AC-D    RELIGION. 

the  purpose  for  which  it  was  invented.  The  story  is 
mentioned  by  this  gospel  alone  ;  a  fact  which,  in  so 
striking,  important  and  public  a  transaction  as  this,  is 
almost  or  quite  conclusive  of  the  fact  that  it  is  not  true. 
The  need  and  purpose  which  called  it  into  being,  also, 
appears  upon  its  face.  The  Christians,  long  afterwards, 
asserted  that  the  body  of  Jesus  had  not  only  disappeared 
from  the  tomb,  but  had  reappeared  alive.  The  Jews 
would  not  believe  this,  but  answered  the  story  of  his 
disappearance,  by  saying  that  his  disciples  had  come  and 
stole  it.  This  had  come  to  be  the  common  answer,  as 
it  would  seem,  in  the  days  of  the  writer.  And  the  writer 
clearly  shows  that  it  was  to  meet  and  rebut  this  charge 
that  the  story  was  told. 

It  appears  upon  its  face,  also,  that  the  story  was 
evidently  written  in  some  after  age  or  generation.  For 
it  alleges  that  the  story  of  stealing  the  body  was  "  com- 
monly reported  among  the  Jews  until  this  day''  Such 
an  expression  clearly  indicates  that  the  occurrence  itself 
must  have  happened  in  a  former  age  or  generation.  For 
we  do  not  say  of  a  report  that  originated  in  our  own 
time,  that  it  continued  to  be  reported  "  until  this  day  ;  " 
but  use  this  expression  to  indicate  a  traditional  report  or 
one  perpetuated  from  a  former  age  or  from  former  gener- 
ations. These  three  facts  alone  : — that .  it  was  written 
long  afterwards,  and  almost  certainly  in  a  subsequent 
age ;  that  it  was  written  to  meet  an  existing  and  special 
need  ;  and  that  it  is  never  even  referred  to  by  any  of  the 
other  Gospels,  are  quite  sufficient  to  destroy  its  weight  as 
evidence. 


THE    REVIVAL.  615 

It  will  be  seen,  also,  that  the  story  tells  us,  not  only 
of  the  meetings,  movements  and  consultations  of  the 
high  Jewish  and  Roman  officials,  but  their  very  lan- 
guage, their  private  knowledge,  and  the  secret  acts, 
purposes  and  language  of  persons  who  could  only  have 
given  them  publicity  at  their  own  highest  peril.  Such 
knowledge  could  never  have  been  possessed  by  the 
Galilean  fishermen  who  were  then  in  hiding  for  their 
own  lives.  Such  detailed  knowledge  of  thoughts,  lan- 
guage and  events  of  such  a  character,  could  only  have 
been,  all,  known  to  God,  and  it  will  appear,  pretty  cer- 
tainly, that  God  was  not  the  author  of  this  story  before 
we  have  done  with  it. 


Let  us  glance  at  the  probabilities,  or  rather  improb- 
abilities, of  this  story.  The  very  first  assertion  in  it 
shows,  that  it  emanated  from  a  person  ignorant  of  the 
customs  of  the  Jews,  or  who  availed  himself  of  such 
ignorance  in  those  whom  he  specially  addressed.  The 
day  on  which  the  "  chief  priests  and  Pharisees "  are 
said  to  have  assembled  and  determined  upon  this  request 
for  a  guard,  and  then  went  in  a  body  to  Pilate  to  make 
the  request,  and  then  proceeded  to  station  and  set  the 
guard  and  seal  the  sepulchre,  was  the  Passover  SabbatJi, 
the  most  sacred  day  in  the  Jewish  calendar.  To  suppose 
that  the  "  chief  priests  and  Pharisees "  —  those  ex- 
emplars of  Jewish  piety  who  were  enraged  at  Jesus  for 
even  healing  the  sick  on  the  sabbath,  would  devote 
their  time  to  all  this  on  this  "high"  sabbath  day,  was 


6l6  JESUS   AND   RELIGION. 

supposing  the  unsupposable  —  the  morally  impossible. 
Had  they  have  desired  to  make  such  a  request  on 
that  day,  they  would  unquestionably  have  sent  a  mes- 
senger with  a  request  for  Pilate  himself  to  have  it  done. 
For  we  have  seen,  not  only  how  sacred  these  men  re- 
garded and  kept  the  sabbath,  but  we  have  seen  that 
they  regarded  this  special  day  so  sacred  that  they  dared 
not  enter  the  Roman  governor's  palace  even  the  day 
before,  at  the  trial  of  Jesus,  lest  it  might  defile  them  so 
as  to  disqualify  them  for  their  sacred  privileges  and 
duties  on  this  very  day,  when  they  are  said,  not  only  to 
have  visited  Pilate,  but  to  have  engaged  thus  largely  in 
temporal  affairs. 

And  again  :  This  was  evidently  done, — at  the  earliest, 
on  sabbath  morning — the  morning  after  the  crucifixion. 
Now,  if  the  disciples  were  likely  to  steal  the  body,  could 
they  not  steal  it  the  first  night  as  well  as  afterwards, 
and  were  they  not  as  likely  to  do  so  ?  And  had  not  the 
body  been  delivered,  from  the  very  first  and  uncondition- 
ally, into  possession  and  control  of  two  disciples  of 
Jesus,  to  do  what  they  pleased  with  it  ?  If  the  high 
priests  and  Pharisees  did  not  know  them  to  be  actual  or 
open  disciples  of  Jesus,  they  suspected  it,  and  sub- 
stantially charged  it  on  one  of  them,  and  knew  that  they 
had  opposed  his  conviction  and  had  been  his  most  active 
friends  throughout.  They  had  all  left  before  he  was 
taken  from  the  cross,  and  could  not  be  supposed  to 
have  known  where  he  was  taken  to.  For  none  seems 
to  have  followed  and  watched  where  they  took  him 
except  the  two  Marys.  But  if  they  were  informed  about 
the  matter  at  all,  they  must  have  known  that  he  had 


THE   REVIVAL.  6 1  / 

been  at  once  delivered  over  to  his  friends  when  taken 
from  the  cross,  and  deposited  in  the  private  tomb  of 
Joseph  ;  and  that  Pilate,  nor  nobody  else,  had  any  right 
to  further  interfere,  in  any  way,  with  that  tomb  or  with 
the  body  or  the  disposal  of  it.  Is  it  possible,  then,  to 
believe,  that  these  men,  knowing  that  Jesus  had  fore- 
told his  resurrection  and  being  desirous  to  test  its  truth, 
should  have  never  said  a  word  about  it  while  the  body 
was  under  legal  control  and  Pilate  had  a  right  to 
grant  their  request,  but  have  permitted  the  execution  to 
close  and  the  body  to  pass  unconditionally  out  of  all 
legal  control,  into  the  hands  of  its  private  friends,  and 
to  have  remained  under  the  control  of  those  friends  long 
enough  to  have  conveyed  it  to  Jericho  or  beyond  the 
Jordan,  and  then,  for  the  first  time,  solemnly  assemble 
and  consult  about  asking  Pilate  to  do  what  neither  he 
nor  they  had  the  slightest  right  to  do,  even  if  it  were 
not  too  late  for  any  practical  use  ?  The  idea  is  in- 
credible. Both  they  and  Pilate  would  have  known,  that 
he  had  neither  the  right  nor  the  inclination  to  grant 
their  request  And  had  they  made  so  irrational  and 
useless  a  request,  Pilate  would  have  delighted  to  refuse 
it,  if  he  had  thought  it  would  in  the  least  humor  them, 
or  favor  their  purposes  in  this  matter,  as  he  did  their 
request  concerning  his  insulting  superscription  on  the 
cross. 

But  again  :  How  came  these  priests  to  remember 
that  Jesus  had  said,  that  "  After  three  days  I  shall  arise 
again  ? "  Jesus  had,  really,  never  said  any  such  thing 
to  anybody, — but  certainly  not  to  those  priests.  He 
had  said  in  the  Temple  that,  if  they  would  tear  down 


6l8  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

that  Temple,  he  would  build  it  again  in  three  days, 
but  no  allusion  was  made,  in  any  form,  to  his  own 
death  or  the  prospect  of  it ;  nor  could  or  did  any  one 
who  heard  it  suppose  for  a  moment,  that  his  remark 
had  any  allusion  to  his  own  death  or  resurrection,  or 
that  it  had  any  secret  meaning  beyond  the  plain  import 
of  the  words  used.  Nor  did  Jesus  ever  say  that  they 
had  any  such  occult  meaning,  even  to  his  disciples. 
After  he  had  reappeared  on  the  third  day,  then  some  of 
the  writers  of  the  Gospels  or  their  subsequent  aiders 
took  it  upon  themselves  to  .explain  it  by  gratuitously 
telling  us  that,  in  speaking  of  rearing  the  Temple  in 
three  days,  he  meant  the  temple  of  his  own  body.  How 
then,  we  repeat,  could  these  priests  have  remembered 
and  been  so  anxious  about,  what  they  had  never  heard  ? 
At  this  very  time,  the  Apostles  themselves  had  no 
thought  of  his  resurrection,  and  declared  that  they  had 
never  even  heard  of  any  scripture  that  he  was  to  rise 
from  the  dead,  and  regarded  the  report  of  two  of  their 
own  women,  who  had  seen  the  empty  sepulchre  and 
had  actually  seen  and  talked  to  Jesus  himself  after 
he  had  left  the  sepulchre,  as  mere  "idle  tales;  "and 
had  actually  prepared  spices  for  his  burial  on  that 
very  third  day.  And  yet,  at  that  very  time  (we 
are  long  afterwards  told),  the  Jewish  priests  remem- 
bered all  about  his  going  to  rise,  and  were  breaking  the 
sabbath  to  get  Pilate  to  do  what  he  had  no  right  to 
do,  in  order  to  prevent  any  pretence  of  Jesus  having 
fulfilled  his  prediction,  by  keeping  him  from  getting  into 
the  hands  of  his  friends,  when  he  had  been  delivered 
into  their  hands  from  the  moment  he  had  left  the 
cross ! 


0  THE   REVIVAL. 

And  again  :  Had  all  these  "  chief  priests  and  Phar- 
isees "  have  known  of  such  a  prediction,  and  have  pub- 
licly gone  to  Pilate  about  it,  and  have  publicly  gone 
with  a  guard  to  the  sepulchre  and  set  a  seal  on  it,  to 
prevent  any  chance  of  imposition  in  the  matter, — and 
done  all  this  on  the  sabbath  of  the  Passover,  when  the 
city  was  crowded  with  strangers  and  Jerusalem  was 
ringing  with  the  trial  and  crucifixion  of  its  pretended 
King  and  Christ,  What  would  have  been  the  result 
upon  the  people  ?  Such  singular  and  public  proceedings 
would  have  spread  the  news  of  their  object  "like  wild 
fire"  through  the  assembled  thousands.  The  rumor  of 
such  a  declaration  on  the  part  of  Jesus,  and  the  fact 
that  the  rulers  of  the  people  were  taking  up  the  matter 
seriously,  and  the  possibility  of  so  stupendous  an  event 
would  have  created  such  a  fever  of  curiosity  and  such 
a  contagion  of  excitement  that  thousands  would  have 
-rushed  to  Calvary  to  witness  the  result.  There  would 
have  been  a  guard  of  tens  of  thousands  of  people  instead 
of  half  a  dozen  soldiers. 

But  again  :  The  reported  conduct  of  the  Jewish  rulers 
and  of  the  guards  who  reported  to  them  is,  if  possible, 
more  incredible  than  anything  in  the  whole  story.  That 
a  guard  of  Roman  soldiers  on  special  duty  should  have 
seen  an  angel  come  clown  from  heaven,  with  "  raiment  as 
white  as  snow  "  and  a  "  countenance  like  lightning,"  in 
the  midst  of  a  "  great  earthquake,"  and  open  the  very 
tomb  they  were  guarding,  is  a  matter,  one  would  say, 
that  is  somewhat  incredible.  That  no  one  else  in  the 
city  should  have  been  disturbed  by  so  great  an  earth- 
quake, and  that  these  soldiers  should  have  left  their  post 


62O  ESUS   AND    RELIGION.  % 

without  orders  or  without  at  once  reporting  to  their 
superior  officers  is  also  quite  incredible — quite  unlike  all 
otner  earthquakes,  and  quite  unlike  the  iron  fidelity  and 
discipline  of  the  Roman  soldier.  That  a  few  of  these 
guards  should  go  and  tell  "  all  these  things  that  were 
done  "  to  the  chief  priests  ;  that  the  Sanhedrim  should 
be  assembled  ;  that  under  the  very  nose  of  Pilate  and 
almost  certainly  in  the  presence  of  secret  sympathizers 
with  Jesus,  these  Jewish  rulers  should  have  dared  to 
offer  a  bribe  to  a  number  of  Pilate's  soldiers  to  report  a 
lie,  and  should  have  been  so  silly  and  so  lavish  of  money 
as  to  give  them  "  large  money  "  to  smother  the  fact  of  a 
"  great  earthquake  "  and  other  divine  manifestations,  and 
to  report  that  most  stupid,  dangerous  and  improbable  of 
all  lies, — namely,  that  "  his  disciples  came  by  night  and 
stole  him  away  while  we  slept"  is  certainly  very  incred- 
ible, when  told  of  all  this  intelligent  and  pious  body  of 
Jews.  These  facts  are  rendered  still  more  incredible 
when  we  reflect  upon  the  probabilities  of  the  immediate 
exposure  of  their  infamous  conduct,  and  still  more  when 
we  reflect  upon  its  utter  uselessness  ;  since  they  knew 
that  they  were  bribing  but  a  part  of  the  guard,  and  that 
the  other  soldiers  of  the  guard  who  had  gone  to  their 
quarters  or  elsewhere,  would  not  be  influenced  by  this 
bribe  to  their  fellows,  but  were  probably,  at  that 
moment,  telling  to  their  officers  or  comrades  this  whole 
marvellous  story  they  were  thus  trying  to  suppress  by 
the  most  shameful  means.  It  is  bad  enough  to  charge 
the  whole  body  of  the  Jewish  priests  and  elders  with 
being  unscrupulous  villains,  without  charging  them  with 
being  idiots  as  well.  That  these  soldiers,  also,  should 
have  dared  the  palpable  risk, — nay,  the  moral  certainty, 


THE    REVIVAL.  621 

of  immediate  exposure  and  certain  execution,  by  taking 
this  degrading  bribe  :  that  they  should  all,  moreove^ 
consent  to  degrade  themselves  as  men,  to  stultify  and 
dishonor  themselves  as  soldiers,  and  by  their  own  re- 
port charge  themselves  with  the  capital  and  unpardon- 
able offence  of  "  sleeping  at  their  posts,"  and  that,  too, 
upon  the  less  than  worthless  promise  of  the  men  who 
bribed  them,  that  they  would  persuade  Pilate  to  forgive 
them  for  this  unpardonable  military  crime — that  they, 
whose  very  advocacy  would  but  seal  their  doom  with 
Pilate,  would  persuade  him  to  save  them  ! — that  these 
soldiers  should  have  so  acted,  we  say,  is  immeasurably 
incredible.  Taking  the  whole  story  together  we  remem- 
ber no  similar  bundle  of  palpable  improbabilities  and 
absurdities,  in  so  short  a  compass,  which  has  ever  re- 
ceived the  credence  of  intelligent  people. 


Even  as  the  story  stands,  however,  it  might  have 
claimed  forbearance  from  our  theory ;  since  its  truth 
would  have  insured  rather  than  hindered  the  operations 
that  theory  supposes  to  have  taken  place.  We  have 
seen  that  Jesus  was  delivered  to  his  most  powerful  and 
active  friends,  about  an  hour  and  a  half  before  sundown 
on  the  day  preceding  this  demand  on  Pilate  for  a  guard  ; 
and  that  there  was  ample  time  and  opportunity  for  any 
kind  of  assistance  to  have  been  furnished  before  that  de- 
mand was  even  determined  upon.  Indeed  there  was 
ample  time  and  opportunity  to  furnish  them  and  apply 
restoratives  that  same  evening.  And  had  anything  been 


622  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

left  incomplete,  we  know  that  both  Joseph  and  Nico- 
demus  were  members  of  that  body  which  met  and  de- 
termined upon  asking  for  a  guard,  and  would  have 
known  of  the  purpose  to  procure  it,  from  the  very  first 
movement  in  the  matter ;  and  could  have  been  able  t'o 
furnish  whatever  else  might  have  been  needed,  and  to 
have  notified  Jesus,  long  before  the  proceedings  required 
to  procure  and  set  such  a  guard  could,  have  been  gone 
through  with.  But  this  is  said  upon  the  supposition  that 
such  a  guard  would  have  been  antagonistic  to  the  pur- 
poses of  the  friends  of  Jesus.  Precisely  the  reverse, 
however,  as  we  have  said,  would  have  been  the  fact. 
The  guard,  if  it  existed,  consisted  of -part  of  the  Temple 
guard,  and  were  the  most  .trusted  troops  of  Pilate.  It 
would  most  probably  have  been  intrusted  to  tb£  very 
centurions  who  managed  the  crucifixion.  These  men 
were  Romans — Pilate's  favorite  guard  and  household 
troops — the  men  that  held  the  Temple  itself,  and  were 
but  the  agents  of  his  will,  and,  as  the  very  story  admits, 
were  accountable  to  him  alone  for  their  conduct.  Such 
a  guard  would  have  been  the  identical  thing  to  secure 
absolute  immunity  from  special  and  unsuspected  facili- 
ties and  all  chance  of  disturbance.  We  have  seen  just 
how  much  cause  Joseph  and  Nicodemus  had  to  dread 
Pilate  and  his  soldiers  in  this  matter.  Not  only  could 
they  have  had  free  access  to  the  body  under  such  a 
guard,  but  they  could  have  made  the  officer  of  the  guard, 
by  a  mere  word  from  Pilate,  their  own  instruments  in 
everything.  But,  had  the  guard,  actually  prevented  in- 
gress into  the  sepulchre,  we  have  seen  that  no  ingress 
was  necessary  after  the  guard  was  set.  Nor  could  the 
guard  have  hindered  any  necessary  operation,  until  the 


THE    REVIVAL.  623 

time  came  for  the  escape  of  Jesus.  And  the  story  itself 
tells  us  that  the  guard  had  actually  left  in  time  for  Jesus 
to  actually  escape  before  it  was  fully  daylight.  If  it  were 
not  a  benefit,  it  was  certainly  set  too  late  and  left  too 
early  to  be  an  in j  ury.  If,  indeed,  such  a  guard  were  ever 
set,  the  true  source  and  purpose  of  its  employment  can 
scarcely  permit  of  a  doubt.  Pilate  had  no  right,  as  he 
most  certainly  had  no  inclination,  to  interfere  further  in 
the  matter,  unless  he  did  so  at  the  instance  and  for  the 
purpose  of  favoring  Joseph  and  Nicodemus  in  their 
friendly  purposes.  Seeing  that  they  had  been  followed 
and  watched  by  that  indefatigable  devotee,  Mary  Magda- 
len, and  her  associate,  it  may  well  have  been  that  Joseph 
and  Nicodemus  feared  that  the  disciples  of  Jesus,  hear- 
ing of  his  being  placed  in  this  sepulchre  from  these  fe- 
male disciples,  might  attempt  to  visit  and  look  upon  the 
body,  and  might  even  attempt  to  take  possession  of  it 
with  a  view  of  burying  it  themselves.  They  may  even 
have  known  of  the  burial  preparations  that  those  hum- 
bler and  more  open  followers  of  Jesus  had  been  actually 
making  ;  for  they  actually  had  been  making  such  prep- 
arations and  intended  to  bury  him  themselves,  on  the 
very  day  he  reappearc  d.  And  it  was  known  that  Jesus 
had  taught  his  disciples  that  it  was  lawful  to  do  any 
"  good  work"  on  the  sabbath,  and  that  there  was  danger 
that  they  might  come  and  take  the  body  at  night  or  on 
the  sabbath.  Such  an  attempt,  or  even  a  visiting  of  the 
body  to  look  upon  it,  would  have  greatly  endangered  the 
chances  of  both  secrecy  and  escape.  The  secrecy  and 
discretion  of  this  ignorant  body  of  men,  and  much  less 
of  the  ignorant  women  who  accompanied  them,  were  by 
no  means  to  be  depended  upon  in  so  dangerous  and  mo- 


624  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

mentous  an  affair.  And  we  find,  by  what  occurred  after- 
wards, that  the  matter  never  was  intended  to  have  been 
divulged  to  the  disciples  beyond  what  was  unavoidable. 
These  two  men  were  the  Jewish  rulers,  then,  if  any,  who 
instigated  this  setting  of  a  guard.  They,  alone,  had 
either  sufficient  motive  or  power  to  procure  it.  It  is 
possible  that,  to  prevent  suspicion  of  any  kind,  they  pro- 
cured the  concurrence  of  the  chief  men  of  the  Sanhe- 
drim, of  which  they  were  members,  by  suggesting  that, 
if  the  disciples  came  and  took  the  body  and  gave  it  a 
public  burial,  the  reaction  which  might  arise  from  the 
sympathy  this  might  excite,  would  bring  odium  on  those 
who  caused  the  death.  Other  than  motives  of  this  kind, 
indeed,  the  Jewish  rulers  had  no  concern  in  the  matter. 
They  had  been  inexorable  in  their  purpose,  but  the  mo- 
tive of  that  purpose  was  not  vindictiveness,  although 
they  were  incensed  at  Jesus.  The  motive  was  clearly 
declared,  and  pertained  to  the  public  good.  It  was  "  ex- 
pedient "  that  he  should  die  for  the  security  of  the  Jew- 
ish .people  and  their  privileges.  Had  he  denied  his 
kingly  pretensions  on  his  trial,  or  given  satisfactory  as- 
surances that  he  would  abandon  them,  the  matter  would 
never  have  been  pressed  to  extremities  at  all.  After  his 
sentence  and  crucifixion  the  fears  which  had  stimulated 
the  Jewish  rulers,  no  longer  existed.  Jesus  could  never 
re-appear  openly,  since  his  condemnation  and  sentence 
would  still  stand  in  force  until  executed  ;  and  his  re- 
appearance would  be  at  once  proof  that  it  had  not  been 
executed,  and  leave  him  subject  to  their  power  at  any 
moment,  and  to  re-crucifixion  on  his  o3d  sentence. 
Having  this  power  and  knowing  that  he  was  thenceforth 
powerless  as  a  political  or  religious  agitator  of  the  Jews, 


THE   REVIVAL  625 

they  would  probably  have  ignored,  or  even  been  gratified 
at  his  secret  escape,  so  far  as  he  himself  was  concerned. 
The  real  danger,  even  to  Jesus,  did  not  lie  here.  But 
his  re-appearance  or  discovery  would  bring  down  all 
their  power  and  vengeance  upon  the  members  of  their 
own  body  who  had  been  secretly  untrue  to  them,  and 
had  aided  in  his  escape,  as  well  as  upon  Pilate,  who  had 
fought  them  from  the  beginning,  and  had  thus  finally 
and  secretly  outwitted  them.  To  secure  the  proof  of 
their  complicity  in  his  escape,  and  their  vengeance  upon 
them  for  it,  they  would  have  certainly  seized  Jesus,  at 
whatever  cost,  if  an  opportunity  had  offered.  And,  if 
ever  these  priests  were  told  of  any  earthquakes,  angels, 
etc.,  it  was  told  them  to  deter  them  from  inquiring  as 
to  the  real  facts  concerning  his  burial. 


However  these  possibilities  may  have  been,  we  are 
really  concerned  only  to  know  that  Jesus  having  entered 
that  sepulchre  or  room  in  a  live  condition,  there  was 
ample  and  especially  favorable  opportunities  for  his  re- 
vival, as  well  as  for  aiding  his  revival  and  for  preparing 
for  his  escape,  and  that  all  this  actually  ojccurred,  and 
by  natural  means  and  in  natural  ways ;  that  he  actually 
did  recover  from  his  swoon  and  prostration,  and  was 
not  only  left  free  to  come  out  before  day  on  the  morning 
after  the  sabbath,  but  that  he  did  come  out,  clothed  and 
prepared  for  escape  ;  and  that,  as  there  were  two  per- 
sons who  put  him  there,  so  there  were  two  persons  there 
before  day  on  that  morning,  to  help  and  aid  him  ;  and 

40 


626  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

that  in  this  simple  and  natural  revival  from  a  swoon, 
within  this  secret  recess,  under  the  supervision  of  these 
two  indefatigable  Jews,  we  have  the  simple  reality  of  the 
basic  fact  of  the  most  potent  of  human  religions,  and  one 
which,  for  nineteen  centuries,  has  inspired  the  lives  and 
consoled  the  death-beds  of  unnumbered  millions  of 
Earth's  bravest  and  best.  Mysterious  and  altogether 
wonderful  are  thy  methods,  O  God ! 


THE   ESCAPE.  627 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

THE    ESCAPE. 

WE  have  considered  some  of  the  concurrent  and  an- 
tecedent facts  bearing  upon  the  vital  condition  of  Jesus 
during  his  punishment  upon  the  cross  and  during  his 
stay  in  his  rock  retreat.  It  remains  still  for  us  to  re- 
view the  events  connected  with  his  reappearance  and 
escape,  and  to  determine  their  bearing  upon  the  question 
at  issue.  For  it  will  be  perceived  at  once,  that  these 
events  are  of  the  greatest  value  in  interpreting  the  pre- 
vious condition,  conduct  and  motives  of  the  parties  con- 
cerned ;  since  they  are  largely  correlated  to  them  as 
their  direct  effects.  And  it  is  by  this  class  of  presump- 
tive evidence  that  this  question  is  to  be  determined. 
The  mere  fact  of  the  reappearance  of  Jesus  in  bodily 
life  is  a  matter  depending  upon  more  direct  testimony. 
This  fact  was,  as  we  have  seen,  untruly  and  illogically 
assumed,  by  his  ignorant  followers,  to  be  proof  that  he 
had  been  raised  from  the  dead,  when  they  should,  to  the 
contrary,  have  accepted  it  as  conclusive  proof  that  he 
had  not  been  dead  at  all.  The  fact  of  a  resurrection 
from  death  and  the  mode  of  that  resurrection,  however, 
are  asserted  without  any  direct  proof  or  a  pretence  of 
direct  proof  of  it.  It  was  a  mere  assumption, — made  not 


628  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

only  without  support,  but  in  defiance  of  a  conclusive 
presumption  of  its  untruth,  and  one  which  was  sustained 
not  only  by  the  resistless  fact  of  subsequent  life,  but  by 
the  entire  body  of  the  facts.  No  one  saw  Jesus  rise 
from  the  dead.  If  it  ever  occurred  it  was  far  more  hid- 
den than  that  of  Lazarus.  It  occurred  at  the  most  secret 
hour  of  the  night,  within  a  closed  and  lonely  rock  sepul- 
chre, out  of  sight  of,  and  unknown  to,  all  mortals.  Jesus 
did  not  even  say  that  he  had  risen  from  the  dead  or  that 
God  had  raised  him  from  the  dead.  His  declaration  to 
his  disciples  who  had  refused  to  believe  that  their  women 
had  actually  seen  him,  was  in  these  words  : — "  Ought  not 
Christ  to  have  suffered  these  tilings,  and  to  enter  into  his 
glory."  There  is  neither  an  affirmation  of  his  death,  nor 
of  his  resurrection,  but  his  peculiar  expression,  "  suffered 
these  things"  would  be  more  likely  to  be  used  to  express 
his  sufferings  under  our  theory  than  in  saying  that  it 
was  necessary  that  he  should  have  died  and  have  risen 
from  the  dead  ;  but  sounds  more  like  an  evasion  than 
either.  The  complete  indefiniteness  of  the  expression 
would  seem  to  indicate  that  he  avoided  actually  affirming 
either  that  he  was  dead  or  had  been  resurrected,  but  al- 
lowed them  to  infer  it.  This,  at  least,  is  what  we  must 
do,  if  we  believe  it  at  all.  The  sole  evidence  of  his 
resurrection  (not  his  mere  reappearance)  is  an  infer- 
ence from  facts  on  the  cross  which,  as  we  have  seen, 
could  not  have  even  endangered  life.  If  there  are  other 
reasons  to  believe  in  the  resurrection,  they  must  be  found 
in  the  after  occurrences.  In  both  the  antecedent  and 
subsequent  evidence,  the  supporters  of  all  these  Gospel 
miracles  find  little  save  "  broken  reeds "  that  yield  and 
pierce  them.  For  it  is  here  that  these  old  mistakes  and 


THE    ESCAPE.  629 

fabrications  exhibit  their  greatest  weakness  and  leave 
the  surest  evidences  of  their  true  character.  Their  au- 
thors themselves  were  neither  critical  nor  logical,  and 
they  had  not  reached  that  point  of  mental  progress  which 
enabled  them  to  clearly,  if  at  all,  perceive  the.  correlation 
between  events  and  their  natural  causes  and  consequents. 
It  is  here  that  they  are  most  unguarded  and  exposed 


In  reviewing  this  after-evidence  we  have  before  us 
two  opposite  theories  as  to  the  essential  or  controlling 
facts, — first :  the  natural  and  rational  theory  : — that  the 
evidence  furnished  no  perceivable  or  adequate  natural 
cause  why  Jesus  shottld  have  died  on  the  cross,  or  any 
evidence  that  he  did  die  there,  but  shows,  to  the  reverse 
t)f  this,  that,  from  what  occurred  there,  he  ought  to  have 
survived,  and  that  he  did  survive,  and  was  afterwards  re- 
vived in  his  rock  retreat  and  escaped,  with  or  without 
the  aid  of  others.  Second  :  the  supernatural  theory, — 
that  Jesus  was  an  Incarnate  God,  at  once  the  Messiah  of 
the  Jews  and  the  conditional  Redeemer  of  mankind ; 
that  he  actually  and  willingly  gave  up  his  life  or  suffered 
death  on  the  cross  as  a  vicarious  sacrifice  and  atonement 
for  the  sins  of  all  true  believers  ;  that,  while  actually 
and  completely  dead,  he  rose  from  the  dead  by  divine 
power,  in  contravention  of  the  laws  of  Nature. 


630  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

Now  it  is  manifest  that,  if  Jesus  was  a  Divine  Re- 
deemer who  came  among  men  to  die  for  their  sins  and 
to  arise  again  from  death  for  their  justification,  upon  the 
condition  of  their  believing  in  the  truth  of  these  facts, 
his  conduct  will,  in  all  things,  conform  to  his  divine 
character  and  mission  and  to  the  ends  proposed  ;  while 
it  is  equally  manifest  that,  if  he  were  a  mere  condemned 
man  who  was  fortunate  or  favored  enough  to  have  sur- 
vived his  punishment,  and  was  compelled  to  use  the 
necessary  means  to  escape  from  the  dread  penalty  which 
would  still  have  hung  over  him,  then  we  may  expect  to 
find  him  act  according  to  the  dictates  of  human  nature 
when  inspired  by  the  motives  and  necessities  which  such 
a  situation  involved.  And  perhaps  there  is  no  better 
way  to  prepare  our  minds  to  determine  the  true  signifi- 
cance of  this  after-conduct,  than  by  endeavoring  to 
realize  the  course  of  action  he  would  be  likely  to  pursue, 
or  such  as  would  be  fairly  predicable  of  him,  upon  these 
several  adverse  hypotheses  as  to  his  character,  situation 
and  purposes ;  and  see  how  they  severally  correspond 
with  the  real  facts. 

Men,  by  the  extreme  self-abnegation  and  mental 
slavery  to  which  they  have  been  reduced  by  their  super- 
stitious fears  and  religious  training  in  all  things  which 
pertain  to  this  assumed  Deity,  are  content  to  forego 
their  simplest  rights  of  reason  and  manhood  when  es- 
timating his  character  and  conduct,  and  to  satisfy  them- 
selves by  the  supposition  that  they  have  neither  the  capa- 
city to  judge,  nor  the  right  to  question  or  reason  about 
them — that  in  some  incomprehensible  way  he  must  have 
acted  consistently  with  his  divine  nature  and  purpose, 


THE    ESCAPE  63  I 

since  he  was  divine.  But  we  must  again  repeat  that  it  is 
reasoning  in  a  vicious  circle  to  assume  his  divinity  in 
order  to  sustain  the  very  facts  without  which  he  would 
never  have  been  thought  of  as  a  God.  Besides,  it 
is  neither  reverential  nor  complimentary  to  God  to 
suppose  that  his  acts  are  ungodlike,  inconsequent  and 
inefficient.  We  may  indeed  fail  to  comprehend  the 
real  purposes  or  methods  of  God,  but  when  an  alleged 
purpose  of  a  supposed  God,  incarnated  in  the  flesh, 
is  plainly  told  us,  and  the  means  he  used  to  accom- 
plish that  purpose  are  precisely  such  as  would  neces- 
sarily defeat  the  proposed  end,  we  are  untrue  to  the 
real  God  and  to  ourselves  if  we  fail  to  exercise  our 
reason  in  regard  to  it.  The  worshippers  of  Jesus, 
since  his  alleged  resurrection  and  consequent  apoth- 
eosis, have  endeavored  to  maintain  that  he  was  both 
the  prophesied  Messiah  of  the  Jews  and  a  divine  sac- 
rifice or  sin-offering  for  whosoever  would  believe  on 
him.  The  real  fact,  however,  is,  that  these  pretensions 
are  utterly  incompatible  with  each  other  and  were  not 
amalgamated  or  contemporaneously  maintained  by  him- 
self. Before  his  rejection  by  the  Jews,  he  had  both 
hoped  and  endeavored  to  acquire  the  temporal  Messiah- 
ship  of  the  Jews,  and  had  expressly  limited  his  mission 
and  efforts  to  that  peculiar  race ;  and  neither  friend  nor 
foe  ever  suspected  a  purpose  involving  his  vicarious  sac- 
rifice for  the  sins  of  the  world.  It  was  only  after  his 
punishment  and  supposed  resurrection  that  that  punish- 
ment was  appropriated  as  a  pre-determined  offering  for 
the  sins  of  believers.  This  new  notion  was  born  of  the 
supposed  facts  upon  which  it  was  based,  and  only  after 
the  hopeless  failure  of  his  exclusively  Jewish  project. 


632  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

After  his  rejection  and  crucifixion  by  the  Jews,  his  Mes- 
sianic pretensions  were  at  an  end,  unless  he  could  do 
something  which  would  produce  a  total  reversion  of  his 
rejection, — by  a  revolution  in  the  opinion  of  the  Jewish 
rulers  and  people.  For  all  subsequent  pretences  about 
his  future  or  spiritual  Messiahship  are  but  the  merest 
makeshifts  or  subterfuges  to  cover  a  palpable  failure. 
It  was  therefore  possible  to  him,  if  a  God,  to  take  such 
steps  as  would  not  leave  his  entire  pretensions  during 
his  public  career  a  mere  abortion ;  and,  failing  this,  or 
concurrently  with  it,  to  use  such  means  as  would  most 
efficiently  demonstrate  his  divinity  and  insure  such  a 
belief  in  himself  as  would  secure  the  moral  salvation  of 
both  Jews  and  Gentiles.  These  embrace  the  essential 
objects  of  his  presence  upon  Earth.  To  these,  there- 
fore, would  his  conduct  and  efforts  have  been  directed, 
and  with  all  the  wisdom  and  efficiency  of  a  God.  This 
much  we  have  a  right  to  expect, — if  he  were  a  God  or 
at  all  what  he  is  claimed  to  have  been.  God's  ways  may 
differ  from  ours,  but  that  difference  is  not  marked  by 
their  inconsequentiality,  inefficiency  and  absurdity. 


In  anticipating  the  character  of  his  subsequent  con- 
duct from  such  purposes  and  from  the  supernatural 
stand-point,  we  must  observe  that  absolute  power  was  at 
his  disposal,  and  was  only  limited  by  his  desires  and 
purposes.  We  perceive,  also,  that  the  means  calculated 
to  insure  all  men's  belief  in  his  divinity,  would  be  such 
as  were  calculated,  at  the  same  time,  to  insure  the  un- 


THE    ESCAPE.  •    •  633 

questioning  acceptance  by  the  Jews  in  any  character 
which  he  had  chosen  to  dictate.  All  prophecies  would 
have  been  made  to  yield  to  Jehovah  himself.  What, 
then,  would  we  have  a  right  to  expect  of  a  beneficent 
Deity,  under  such  circumstances,  who  was  desirous  of 
securing  either  the  recognition  of  his  Messiahship  by 
the  Jews  (for  whatever  end),  or  the  recognition  by  all 
men  of  his  Godhood  and  of  his  resurrection  from  the 
dead  ?  Undoubtedly  we  have  a  right  to  expect  that  he 
would  have  had,  at  least,  his  actual  death  publicly  and 
incontestably  proven  beyond  all  power  of  questioning  or 
cavilling  ;  that  he  would  perform  his  resurrection  from 
the  dead  publicly  and  in  a  manner  to  render  the  fact  ab- 
solutely unquestionable  ;  and  that  he  would  perform  the 
whole  with  such  evidences  of  his  divine  nature  and  power 
as  would  demonstrate  his  divinity  beyond  the  possibility 
of  rational  doubt.  To  suppo'se  that  the  Creator  of  the 
human  race  had  predetermined,  before  their  creation, 
that  he  would,  in  the  form  claimed,  redeem  them  to 
eternal  happiness,  upon  the  condition  of  their  belief  in 
his  incarnation,  death  and  resurrection,  and  to  damn 
them  to  eternity  if  they  did  not  believe  in  them  ;  and 
yet  suppose  that  he  would  do  less  than  we  have  indicated 
to  insure  this  necessary  belief  for  their  salvation,  is  sup- 
posing that  that  Creator  is  not  only  less  than  a  God,  but 
more  unjust  and  less  beneficent  than  any  human  being 
would  be  under  like  circumstances  and  with  like  power. 
Nay,  more,  it  is  supposing  a  cruel  and  malignant  spirit 
in  the  Creator ;  since  he  could,  without  cost  or  trouble, 
have  furnished  the  most  resistless  proofs, — by  a  mere 
act  of  volition.  Is  it  possible,  therefore,  to  suppose  that 
a  beneficent  Creator  who  was  willing  to  ignominiously 


634  '        JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

die  to  redeem  his  creatures,  could  allow  those  creatures 
to  lose  this  redemption  and  be  condemned  to  endless 
torment,  by  countless  millions,  by  his  refusing  to  exhibit 
evidence  which  would  only  cost  him  an  act  of  volition  ? 
The  bare  supposition  is  blasphemous  ! 

"(f    i?:/   -.;•:.-•>>_,  ;A    £'il  {•';    V!.;; ;,  f^ji-JV/f     -.;:    ••  •,•':    .j  •  ;:•.•;,  u;  Vjfc 

But  what  proofs  or  exhibitions  should  we  expect  ? 
The  specific  proofs  would  have  been  a  matter  of  indiffer- 
ence, provided  they  were  such  as  were  calculated  to  in- 
sure the  requisite  belief  of  those  who  were  to  be  benefited. 
The  whole  matter  occurred  and  was  intended  for  the 
benefit  of  man  upon  condition  of  his  belief  in  it,  and  the 
proofs,  therefore,  were  to  affect  the  minds  of  men,  and 
if  they  were  from  God,  they  would  have  been  such  as  to 
most  efficiently  convince  the  human  mind.  There  were 
thousands  of  ways  of  doing  it,  and  God  would  have 
known  the  most  efficient  way.  One  method  might  be 
briefly  suggested,  in  an  off-hand  way,  however,  which 
might  serve  for  a  comparison  with  the  reality  which  we 
are  considering.  Let  us  suppose,  for  example,  that, 
when  Jesus  was  taunted  on  the  cross,  by  his  rejecters, 
with  his  lack  of  the  divine  power  which  he  had  professed, 
he  had  calmly  and  kindly  explained  to  them,  that  it  was 
necessary  for  their  salvation,  and  to  the  salvation  of  all 
men,  that  he  should  die  on  the  cross,  and  that  they  were 
but  the  necessary  instruments  of  the  sacrifice  which  he 
was  offering  for  those  of  the  human  race  who  would  be- 
lieve in  and  accept  it  ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  assure 
them  that  he  would  publicly  arise  from  the  dead  at  mid- 
day on  the  day  after  the  approaching  sabbath  ;  and  that, 
as  faith  in  his  divinity  and  in  the  merits  of  his  atone- 
ment were  a  condition  of  the  salvation  for  which  he 


THE   ESCAPE.  635 

died,  it  was  necessary  to  that  end,  that  they  should  be 
unquestionably  verified  at  his  resurrection ;  and  re- 
quest them  to  bring  out  the  entire  city,  with  all  its  offi- 
cials, and  its  visitors  of  all  nationalities,  to  witness  the 
proofs  of  his  divinity ;  and  that,  to  prevent  their  treat- 
ing his  request  lightly,  he  would  cause  a  "  great  earth- 
quake "  to  warn  them  at  sunrise,  at  noon,  and  at  sunset 
on  the  sabbath,  and  that,  on  the  morning  of  the  day  of 
his  resurrection,  an  angel  should  appear  above  the  Tem- 
ple,— with  "  garments  as  white  as  snow,"  and  a  "  coun- 
tenance like  lightning  " — if  you  will,  and  summons  the 
people  to  come  and  behold  the  resurrection  of  God  and 
the  salvation  of  man.  To  insure  the  certainty  of  his 
death,  we  will  suppose  him  to  direct  that,  instead  of 
sparing  him  the  breaking  of  his  limbs,  they  should  sever 
both  his  limbs  and  his  head  from  his  body,  and  deposit 
the  whole  in  the  sepulchre. 

Let  us  now  suppose  all  these  things  to  have  been 
actually  done,  and  the  peoples  and  magnates  to  have  as- 
sembled, at  the  appointed  midday  hour,  to  witness  the 
resurrection.  Behold  !  Adam  and  Eve,  Abel  and  Noah, 
Abraham  and  Sarah,  Isaac  and  Rebecca,  Jacob  and  Ra- 
chel, Moses  and  Elias,  Solomon  and  David  descend  from 
the  heavens,  as  they  are  respectively  announced  by  a 
voice  from  Heaven,  and  range  themselves  in  mid  air 
above  the  sepulchre,  to  witness  the  "  seed  of  the  woman 
bruise  the  serpent's  head."  .  The  vast  rock  of  the  sepul- 
chre now  becomes  more  transparent  than  crystal,  an4 
the  mutilated  remains  of  the  body  of  God  are  clearly 
visible  to  all  eyes.  The  "  forty  legions  of  angels  "  which 
Jesus  said  he  could  command,  actually  appear,  and  fill 
the  circle  of  the  heavens  with  their  resplendent  glories, 


636  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

and  with  the  music  which  "  makes  glad  the  city  of  the 
living  God."  An  ineffable  splendor  bathes  the  entire 
heavens  and  illuminates  all  things  with  a  divine  glory. 
The  Temple  becomes  as  transparent  as  glass,  and  the 
"  shekina  "  is  seen  in  unwonted  glory  hovering  over  the 
mercy  seat  in  the  "  holy  of  holies."  The  transparent 
rock  of  the  sepulchre  evaporates,  and  vanishes  in  the 
ambient  air.  The  mutilated  remains  of  Jesus  lay  naked 
and  exposed  in  the  universal  luminosity.  In  the  full 
sight  of  the  assembled  thousands  the  dissevered  head  and 
limbs  of  the  corpse,  as  if  spontaneously,  reunite  with  the 
body.  The  color  and  breath  of  life  return  to  it :  and 
Jesus  rises  in  all  the  perfection  of  his  restored  manhood 
and  the  majesty  of  his  divinity,  and  of  his  vindicated 
Godhood,  and  is  borne  aloft  unto  the  heavens  between 
Adam  and  Eve,  amid  the  "  Te  Deum  laudimus  "  of  the 
Heavenly  Host ;  while  upon  the  vault  of  the  heavens,  in 
letters  of  fire,  and  in  all  languages,  are  written  the  words 
— "  Man  is  redeemed."  There  then  arises,  upon  the  site 
of  the  sepulchre,  from  out  the  earth,  a  vast  pyramid  of 
impenetrable  diamond,  indestructible  by  man,  upon 
which  is  recorded  these  divine  events,  in  all  languages, 
and  in  letters  of  diamond  light,  for  the.  benefit  of  future 
generations. 


How  immeasurably  more  effective  than  this  the 
whole  matter  might  have  been  done  by  the  miracle- 
working  God  of  the  Christians,  we  need  not  pause  to 
inquire.  We  can  but  think,  however,  that  even  this 


THE    ESCAPE.  637 

crude  off-hand  conception  would  -have  presented  a  far 
more  appropriate,  credible  and  Godlike  course,  than  to 
have  furnished  a  pretended  death  which  had,  literally, 
neither  test  nor  proof  of  its  reality,  and  which  was  so 
absolutely  incredible,  from  a  natural  stand-point,  as  to 
compel  its  wisest  believers  to  cover  its  impossibility  by 
the  confession  that  it  was  miraculous  ;  and,  after  this 
asserted,  but  wholly  incredible  death,  to  have  performed 
his  pretended  resurrection  at  the  last  and  most  secret 
hour  of  the  night,  in  a  lonely  sepulchre,  without  wit- 
nesses, and  while  all  men  slept,  and  then  to  have  fled  in 
disguise  from  the  face  of  all  men,  save  when  meeting  his 
trusted  followers  in  the  profoundest  secrecy,  like  any 
other  condemned  man  escaping  and  fleeing  from  the 
death  penalty.  Thus,  at  least,  it  would  appear  to  the 
merely  human  and  rational  mind  unilluminated  by 
grace : — the  minds  most  needing  the  proper  proofs. 
~Could  the  Jews  or  others  have  spurned  such  proofs  of 
the  divinity  of  Jesus,  had  he  furnished  them  ?  And  if 
these  or  far  higher  proofs  had  been  necessary  to  secure 
the  faith  of  his  creatures  in  the  existence  of  a  fact  so 
inherently  incredible,  and  so  apparently  impossible  as 
that  an  infinite  God  could  be  domiciled  in  the  compass 
of  a  human  body,  and  be  born  of  a  woman,  and  would 
lead  the  life  of  a  common  mechanic  among  the  people, 
— Would  not  a  God  who  loved  his  creatures  well  enough 
to  thus  humiliate  himself  for  them,  and  finally  to  die  for 
them,  be  more  than  willing  to  furnish  such  proofs  for 
their  benefit,  when  their  eternal  salvation  or  damnation, 
and  the  success  of  his  own  predetermined  and  death- 
bought  ransom  of  them  were  so  dependent  on  them  ? 
There  can  be  assigned  no  even  plausible  reason  or  excuse 


638  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

for  his  failure  to  furnish  them.  With  an  asserted  power 
which  could  have  furnished  any  kind  of  divine  manifes- 
tation and  proof — proof  which  would  bring  every  priest, 
infidel  and  Pharisee  in  Jude'a  to  his  feet,  at  any  time  he 
chose  to  exert  it,  he  had  hitherto  exhibited  only  such 
evidences  as  had  actually  brought  upon  him  the  impu- 
tation of  insanity  and  the  general  disbelief  and  con- 
demnation of  the  almost  entire  people  whom  he  had 
come  more  especially  to  benefit.  Here,  then,  in  his  own 
past  experiences,  was  an  infallible,  because  actual,  test 
of  the  efficiency  of  his  methods,  and  the  positive  proof 
of  the  insufficiency  of  the  kind  of  evidence  already  fur- 
nished, to  secure  the  belief  and  acceptance  which  it  was 
his  express  purpose  to  secure.  Why  did  he  not  furnish 
it  afterwards  ?  The  Christian  God  could  have  furnished 
it  without  cost  or  trouble,  and  with  far  less  expenditure 
of  time  than  was  consumed  by  Jesus  in  fleeing  from,  in- 
stead of  meeting,  the  Jews.  It  may  be  contended,  with 
however  bad  a  grace  by  the  followers  of  Jesus,  that  be- 
fore the  crucifixion  it  was  necessary  that  the  Jewish 
rulers  should  disbelieve  in  him,  in  order  that  they  might 
cause  his  crucifixion  and  thereby  secure  the  necessary 
vicarious  atonement  for  Humanity,  which  is  now  claimed 
to  have  been  the  essential  object  of  his  incarnation. 
But  whatever  semblance  of  an  apology  or  explanation 
this  may  furnish  to  the  minds  of  the  worshippers  of 
Jesus,  the  reason  and  apology  wholly  failed  after  his 
death  was  fully  provided  for  or  accomplished.  There 
could  then  remain  no  possible  reason  why  this  benefi- 
cent incarnated  God  should  either  fear  or  flee  from  the 
Jewish  power  or  should  refuse  or  neglect  to  furnish 
those  incontestible  and  efficient  proofs  of  his  divinity 


THE    ESCAPE.  639 

which  he  had  hitherto  failed  to  furnish  ;  but,  on  the 
contrary,  every  duty  and  every  inclinatiqn  of  so  loving 
and  beneficent  a  Deity,  and  such  an  eternal  and  forgiv- 
ing lover  of  his  frail  and  sinful  creatures,  would  alike 
impel  him  to  do  it,  and  to  do  it  efficiently.  For,  if  even 
the  Jewish  rulers  had  erred  in  rejecting  Jesus  as  the 
Christ,  they  had  erred  through  ignorance,  as  Peter,  in 
his  sermon  to  the  Jews,  expressly  admits — (Acts  iii.  1 7), 
and  also  Paul  (II.  Cor.  ii.  7  and  8).  But,  were  it  possi- 
ble to  offer  a  reason  why  Jesus  failed  to  demonstrate  his 
divinity  by  such  further  exhibitions  of  divine  power,  of 
the  character  suggested,  Can  any  conceivable  reason  or 
apology  be  given,  upon  the  Christian  theory,  why  Jesus 
continued  to  refuse  to  permit  the  public  or  any  of  the 
Jews  to  have  visible  or  personal  evidence  of  the  facts 
which  actually  did  occur — why  he  not  only  performed 
his  pretended  resurrection  out  of  all  human  knowledge, 
sight  or  anticipation,  and  in  a  way  forbidding  all  possi- 
ble knowledge  or  verification  of  it,  but  concealed  from 
the  public  and  from  the  Jews  his  person  and  all  chance 
of  direct  personal  evidence  of  even  the  fact  of  his  re- 
appearing alive  ?  For  St.  Peter  expressly  declares  that 
he  was  not  shown  to  the  public  after  the  resurrection, 
but  only  "  unto  witnesses  chosen  before  God,  even  to  tts, 
who  did  eat  and  drink  with  him  after  he  rose  from  the 
dead" — (Acts  x.  40,  41).  Why  was  not  a  single  citizen 
of  Judea  permitted  to  recognize  him  and  know  he  was 
alive  ?  Why  must  the  Jews  have  been  compelled,  again, 
to  rely  for  proof  of  this  final  act  of  divine  power  upon 
the  say-so  of  these  chosen  witnesses  and  trained  Gali- 
lean followers  of  their  own  professed  Jewish  Messiah  ? 
Having  seen  the  weight  due  to  the  subsequent  con- 


640  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

duct  of  Jesus  in  determining  the  reality  of  his  resurrec- 
tion and  divinity,  and  attempted  to  suggest  the  general 
character  of  a  course  of  conduct  consistent  with  the 
truth  of  those  facts  and  with  the  alleged  divine  purposes 
of  Jesus,  we  may  now  perform  a  like  service  from  the 
natural  and  purely  human  stand-point  and  in  conformity 
with  the  interpretation  of  the  facts  for  which  we  have 
contended.  Treating  Jesus  as  a  mere  man,  we  are  to 
infer  that  he  would  have  exhibited  that  correlation  and 
consistency  between  his  conduct  and  his  objects  and 
motives  which  is  a  trait  of  human  action — that  he  would 
have  acted  as  a  mere  man  would  be  likely  to  act  under 
the  entire  conditions  and  circumstances  under  which  he 
acted,  and  under  the  necessities,  objects  and  motives  in- 
volved, subject  to  the  appropriate  modifications  result- 
ing from  any  peculiarity  in  his  own  character,  rela- 
tions, etc. 

What,  then,  were  the  conditions  existing  at  the  time 
of  his  supposed  resurrection  ?  We  have  a  conception  of 
them  already.  He  had  been  sentenced  to  death,  and 
had  survived  the  partial  execution  of  his  sentence,  with 
the  secret  knowledge  and  connivance  of  Pilate  and  his 
Jewish  coadjutors- — Joseph  and  Nicodemus.  He  had 
been  immediately  delivered,  in  his  swooning  condition, 
but  without  despatchment,  into  the  hands  of  these  two 
astute  and  faithful,  but  secret  Jewish  disciples,  and  had 
remained  under  their  exclusive  control  and  in  a  place 
admirably  adapted  to  all  their  purposes  and  to  the  pro- 
foundest  privacy,  as  has  been  shown.  The  sentence  of 
death  upon  Jesus  still  remained  unexecuted  and  in  full 
force,  and  to  have  openly  re-appeared  would  have  been 


THE    ESCAPE.  64! 

to  give  the  signal  for  his  own  re-arrest  and  execution, 
besides  proving  the  ruin  of  his  friends  Nicodemus  and 
Joseph,  and  probably  of  Pilate  himself.  For  it  would 
not  only  have  been  legitimately  assumed  as  positive 
proof  of  the  insufficiency  of  his  punishment  and  as  pre- 
sumptive evidence  of  the  connivance  of  those  concerned, 
but  it  would  have  recalled  the  many  additional  proofs  of 
their  intention  to  save  him  which  we  have  already  re- 
ferred to,  and  have  awakened  inquiry  into  other  and 
more  secret  evidences  of  their  purpose. 

It  was  to  the  last  degree  important,  therefore,  both 
to  Jesus  and  his  aiders  and  benefactors,  that  the  fact  of 
his  revival  should  not  become  known  to  the  Jews.  Any 
mere  subsequent  rumor  of  his  having  miraculously  risen 
from  the  dead  would,  of  course,  be  met  with  incredulity 
and  endeavors  to  suppress  it ;  but  an  accredited  assertion 
of  his  being  actually  alive  and  at  large  would  have  awa- 
kened all  the  powers  and  vengeance  of  the  Jewish  rulers. 
A  secret  flight  and  continued  banishment,  in  cognito, 
became,  then,  at  once  the  necessity  and  paramount  object 
of  both  Jesus  and  his  secret  aiders.  The  immediate 
necessity  and  object  was  to  get  his  disciples  out  of 
Judea,  and  for  him  himself  to  first  escape  into  their  old 
haunts  in  Galilee,  where  he  could  remain  in  hiding  until 
matters  had  quieted  down,  preparatory  to  his  final  exit 
from  Palestine. 

His  escape  on  the  first  night  was  probably  impossible 
on  account  of  his  prostration,  and  possibly  the  want  of 
suitable  means  of  disguise,  and  would  certainly  be  dan- 
gerous on  account  of  the  ignorance  of  his  disciples  of 


642  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

the  true  facts.  The  same  causes  might  have  operated 
on  the  Sabbath,  even  if  their  movements  and  his  travel- 
ling on  the  Sabbath  would  not  have  been  calculated  to 
attract  attention.  It  became  necessary,  however,  to 
effect  their  purpose  on  the  succeeding  night ;  since  it 
was  morally  certain  that  his  disciples  would  be  looking 
after  his  body  early  on  the  following  morning.  The 
practical  difficulty,  in  fact,  arose  from  his  own  devoted 
followers.  These  were  expecting  and  had  prepared  to 
bury  him  on  that  day  ;  and  it  was  certain  that  no  excuse 
could  be  invented  to  put  off  his  disciples  if  they  came 
for  the  body  and  failed  to  procure  or  see  it.  It  was 
necessary,  therefore,  to  complete  their  operations  before 
daylight,  and  give  his  disciples  to  understand,  not  the 
true  facts,  with  which  they  dare  not  trust  to  the  discre- 
tion of  such  a  crowd  of  men  and  women,  but  that  he  had 
miraculously  risen  from  the  dead  and  had  directed  them 
to  go  and  meet  him  in  Galilee,  and  thus  get  them  out  of 
Jerusalem.  But,  Would  they  believe  this  from  any  but 
his  own  lips  ?  To  avoid  this  manifest  danger,  it  was 
evidently  important  to  delay  the  matter  to  the  last  mo- 
ment, and,  if  necessary,  that  Jesus  himself  should  see 
some  of  them  and  give  them  the  necessary  assurances 
and  directions.  Evidently  such  was  the  situation  from 
our  stand-point.  In  the  very  fidelity  of  these  Galilean 
followers  lay  the  chief  cause  of  delay  and  danger. 


Such  being  the  situation  and  purposes  we  might  ex- 
pect to  find  that  every  preparation  had  been  completed 
and  that  Jesus  was  re-clothed  and  thoroughly  disguised 


THE    ESCAPE.  643 

and  out  of  the  sepulchre,  ready  for  flight,  before  it  was 
fairly  daylight  on  the  morning  in  question — even  "  while 
it  was  yet  dark" — (John  xx.  i).  We  should  expect,  how- 
ever, that  he  would  still  remain  at  hand  on  account 
of  his  followers,  anticipating  their  early  appearance  and 
possible  disbelief  of  his  friends.  We  -should  expect  to 
find  exactly  "  two  men  "  (Luke  xxiv.  4)  there  with  him 
to  the  last,  to  aid  and  help  him.  And  whether  Mary 
Magdalene,  or  others  after  her,  chose  to  speak  of  these 
men  as  angels,  we  should  feel  none  the  less  sure  that 
these  two  men  who  were  his  guardian  angels  at  the  last, 
were  the  same  Joseph  and  Nicodemus  who  had  been  his 
guardian  angels  from  the  first,  and  who  had  a  deep  per- 
sonal interest  in  his  successful  escape  and  secret  flight. 

We  should  expect  that  restless  devotee,  Mary  Mag- 
dalene, and  her  companion,  who  saw  where  he  was  placed, 
would  be  at  the  sepulchre  by  the  time  they  could  see 
their  way,  with  the  spices  to  prepare  the  body  for  burial ; 
and  that  they  would  find  the  sepulchre  already  open 
and  the  body  gone — (Mark  xvi.  1-4.  Luke  xxiv.  1-3. 
John  xx.  i).  If  we  were  afterwards  told  that  Mary 
Magdalene  actually  peeped  into  the  sepulchre  and  "  saw 
a  young  man  sitting  on  the  right  side,  clothed  in  a  long 
white'  garment "  (Mark  xvi.,  5),  we  should  only  conclude, 
if  we  believed  the  story,  that  she  had  come  a  little  earlier 
than  she  was  expected,  and  that  Jesus  had  not  yet  cast 
off  his  long  white  grave-cloth  ;  although  we  should  be 
inclined  to  set  the  whole  story  down  as  a  false  report,  as 
it  is  in  conflict  with  three  of  the  Gospels.  We  should 
expect  these  women  to  be  told  by  Joseph  or  Nicodemus, 
that  Jesus  had  arisen,  and  instruct  them  to  tell  his  disci- 


644  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

pies  that  he  would  meet  them  in  Galilee  (Matt,  xxviii.  7) ; 
and  that,  to  make  matters  sure,  they  would  direct  Jesus 
to  follow  them  and  confirm  it.  And,  having  finally  fin- 
ished their  part  of  the  work,  we  should  expect  that  they 
would  leave,  and  we  should  hear  no  more  of  them  ;  nor 
even  think  more- of  them,  unless  it  were  to  still  wonder 
whether  they  really  were  the  "  Moses  and  Elias  "  who 
secretly  met  Jesus  at  night  in  Galilee,  when  he  was  in  the 
midst  of  his  hopeful  schemes  for  the  temporal  Messiah- 
ship. 

We  should  expect,  also,  that  when  this  report  was 
taken  to  the  disciples,  the  men  would  regard  the  affair 
as  mere  idle  tales  of  these  women  ;  but  that,  to  make 
sure  of  it,  we  might  expect  some  of  them,  perhaps  Peter 
and  John,  to  go  to  the  sepulchre  to  see  for  themselves. 
We  should  expect  them,  also,  to  find  the  sepulchre  open 
and  empty,  but  to  find  no  one  near  it.  Upon  looking  in, 
they  would,  of  course,  see  his  grave-clothes  lying  there 
still,  but  they  probably  would  not  find  them  lying  in  the 
form  they  would  be  if  a  God  had  spontaneously  risen  out 
of  them,  but  as  if  the  head-cloth  or  napkin  had  been 
taken  off  and  rolled  up  and  thrown  aside  in  one  place, 
and  the  linen  wrapper  taken  off  and  thrown  in  another 
place,  very  much  after  the  natural  manner  of  a  man — 
(John  xx.  6,  7). 

We  should,  not  only  be  sure  that  Jesus  would  not  be 
allowed  to  escape  in  his  grave-clothes,  nor  in  clothes  at 
all  similar  to  those  he  habitually  wore,  but  should  feel 
sure  that  his  secret  aiders  would  furnish  him  such  cloth- 
ing as  would,  without  attracting  attention,  most  effectu- 
ally disguise  him,  and  that  they  would  otherwise  complete 


THE   ESCAPE.  645 

his  disguise  by  altering  his  hair  and  beard,  staining  his 
skin,  or  the  like,  so  that  even  his  own  disciples  could  not 
recognize  him  from  his  appearance. 

Having  made  himself  known  to  those  women  and 
sent  word  to  his  disciples,  we  should  expect  that  he 
would  aim  to  leave  the  city  and  its  environs  before  the 
people  were  astir,  and  then  seek  some  place  of  conceal- 
ment near  the  road,  until  night  approached,  with  the  in- 
tent to  travel  the*  next  night  to  Galilee ;  but  that,  in 
leaving  the  city,  he  would  not  follow  any  of  his  accus- 
tomed routes  (not  knowing  what  might  happen),  but 
would  go  westward  towards  Emmaus— in  the  opposite 
direction.  And  should  he  see  two  of  his  disciples  (one 
of  whom  was  Simon  Peter)  walking  to  Emmaus,  we 
should  expect  that  his  anxiety  to  know  the  effect  of  his 
message  and  why  they  were  still  at  Jerusalem,  would  in- 
duce him  to  join  them  with  a  view  to  ascertain.  And 
we  should  be  no  whit  surprised  to  find  that  he  entered 
into  a  long  conversation  with  them,  as  they  walked,  in 
which  they  informed  him  of  his  own  crucifixion  and  the 
report  that  he  had  left  the  sepulchre  and  was  alive,  or 
that  they  should  invite  him  to  eat  with  them  in  the  vil- 
lage, and  that  he  gladly  accepted  the  invitation  ;  or  that 
through  all  this  long  conversation,  these  disciples  never 
once  penetrated  his  disguise,  nor  ever  once  suspected 
that  it  was  their  master  until  they  discovered  it  by  his 
peculiar  mode  of  blessing  the  food ;  or  that  Jesus,  upon 
perceiving  that  they  had  recognized  him,  should  be  panic- 
stricken  and  flee,  lest  their  exclamations  or  demonstra- 
tions should  betray  him  ;  since  we  know  these  sudden 
and  panic  flights  were  characteristic  of  him. 


646  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

We  should  expect  that  the  effect  of  this  rencontre 
and  conversation  would  be  that  Jesus  would  perceive 
the  necessity  of  seeing  his  disciples  and  finally  settling 
their  doubts,  so  that  they  might  leave  before  mischief 
were  done  ;  and  that  for  that  purpose,  and  as  darkness 
was  approaching,  he  would  follow  these  disciples  to  their 
retreat  in  the  city,  and  there  meet  his  disciples  at  night 
and  then  finally  leave  for  Galilee  that  same  night.  And, 
as  he  had  been  fasting  all  day  and  had  fled  from  the 
table  without  eating,  that  evening,  we  should  expect 
that,  after  his  disciples  had  failed  to  recognize  him,  and 
he  had  finally  induced  most  of  them  to  believe  in  his 
identity,  the  very  first  thing  would  be  to  ask  his  disci- 
ples for  something  to  eat — a  matter  very  Jiuman,  but 
also  very  natural  and  necessary  to  a  human  : — and  that 
they  would  likely  give  him  his  favorite — "  broiled  fish," 
with  perhaps  "  an  honeycomb  "  in  addition  —  (Luke 
xxiv.  41-44).  But  why  continue  in  this  strain  further. 
For,  of  course,  it  has  been  perceived  from  the  first,  that 
we  have  simply  adopted  the  gospel  recitals  of  the  actual 
facts,  of  subsequent  occurrence,  for  our  suppositions  or 
inferred  prediction  of  them  ;  or,  in  other  words,  we  have 
inferred  that  Jesus,  as  a  mere  man,  would,  under  his  cir- 
cumstances, have  been  most  likely  to  do  the  very  things 
which  he  did  do.  But,  Has  not  this  course  of  treatment 
clearly  shown,  that  what  was  really  done  by  all  parties 
was  not  only  compatible  with  the  actual  human  nature, 
objects  and  motives  as  contended  for  by  us,  but  was 
what  •  was  especially  likely  to  have  been  done  ?  Was 
there  a  single  natural  and  credible  fact  that  occurred 
which  does  not  correspond  with  and  confirm  our  theory 
of  the  facts  as  to  the  crucifixion  and  of  his  continued 


THE    ESCAPE.  647 

life  and  revival,  or  one  which  does  not  find  its  natural 
and  full  explanation  in  the  fact  that  Jesus  was  a  mere 
man,  secretly  escaping  from  a  partially  executed,  but 
still  pending  sentence  of  death,  under  the  special  cir- 
cumstances contended  for  ?  Have  we  found,  in  it  all, 
one  act  indicative  of  a  divine  nature  or  a  divine  pur- 
pose ?  Was  not  the  whole  matter,  indeed,  palpably  and 
pitiably  human! 

There  is  one  fact,  however,  of  such  controlling 
weight  as  to  deserve  separate  and  special  consideration, 
namely  :  that  he  was  thoroughly  and  intentionally  dis- 
guised. This  fact,  in  itself,  is  of  a  definitive  and  conclu- 
sive nature  in  reference  both  to  the  character  and  mo- 
tives of  Jesus.  And,  although  it  seems  to  have  been 
utterly  overlooked  because  of  its  absolute  incompatibility 
with  the  received  notions  of  Jesus  and  his  resurrection, 
we  aver,  that  no  fact  could  be  more  plainly  and  incon- 
testably  pointed  out  by  the  evidence  : — that  it  is,  in  fact, 
beyond  rational  doubt.  We  are  told  in  John's  account, 
that  when  Jesus  came  to  Mary  Magdalene,  she  "saw 
Jesus  standing  and  knew  not  that  it  was  Jesus ; "  that 
she  thought  it  was  a.  gardener,  and  addressed  him  as  such 
in  reference  to  his  own  body  ;  but  that  Jesus  responded 
by  simply  addressing  her  by  her  name — by  saying  the 
single  word,  Mary,  and  that  this  devoted  woman  knew 
him  instantly  and  without  another  word.  Here  we  find 
a  woman  who  would  probably  recognize  him  even  sooner 
than  his  own  mother,  and  who  actually  recognized  him 
by  his  voice  in  the  annunciation  of  a  single  accustomed 
word,  speaking  face  to  face  with  Jesus  about  his  own 
body  without  ever  suspecting  his  identity  with  her  mas- 


648  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

ter ;  and  -that,  too,  when  it  must  have  been  fair  daylight, 
for  it  was  after  Peter  and  John  had  visited  the  sepul- 
chre. Now,  What  is  the  necessary  inference  from  this  ? 
No  unbiased  mind  can  fail  to  perceive  that  Jesus  must 
have  been  disguised  most  thoroughly — more  thoroughly 
than  any  mere  change  of  clothes  would  disguise  him,  to 
have  deceived  this  woman  under  such  circumstances. 
His  very  face,  hair,  beard,  etc.,  must  have  been  changed. 

On  the  evening  of  the  same  day,  he  appeared  to  two 
of  his  disciples,  in  daylight,  and  walked  and  talked  with 
*  them  a  long  time  and  sat  down  to  eat  with  them.  Un- 
less disguised  these  men  would  have  recognized  him 
even  at  a  great  distance,  or  among  many  thousands. 
But,  although  they  had  heard  that  he  was  out  and  alive, 
they  talked  to  him  about  his  own  pretensions,  of  their 
hopes  of  his  having  been  the  Messiah,  of  his  crucifixion 
and  the  report  of  his  resurrection,  inquired  of  him  if  he 
was  a  stranger  in  Jerusalem  and  invited  him  to  eat  with 
them,  etc.,  without  ever  once  suspecting  who  he  was. 
We  then  witness  a  similar  phenomenon  and  proof  to 
that  which  occurred  with  the  Magdalene.  When  they 
saw  and  heard  his  peculiar  manner  of  blessing  the  bread, 
they  instantly  recognized  him  ;  and  when  he  saw  that 
they  had  recognized  him,  he  as  instantly  fled,  before  a 
word  could  be  uttered  ;  evidently  to  prevent  the  possi- 
bility of  his  exposure  to  others  in  the  house — (Luke 
xxiv.  13-32).  Could  it  be  possible  that  these  disciples 
would  have  failed  to  even  suspect  who  he  really  was  and 
to  regard  him  as  a  stranger,  under  all  these  circum- 
stances, unless  his  disguise  was  most  thorough  and  com- 
plete, when  they  knew  him  so  intimately  that  they  in- 


THE    ESCAPE.  649 

stantly  recognized  him  by  his  accustomed  mode  of  doing 
a  single  private  act  ?  In  both  the  instances  cited  the 
same  significant  and  convincing  fajpts  occurred.  In  both 
instances  he  was  actually  and  instantly  recognized  by  a 
single  fact,  but  in  each  case,  also,  that  recognition  and 
fact  occurred  through  his  voice  or  action,  and  not  by  his 
personal  appearance.  So  far  as  his  personal  appearance 
was  concerned  he  was  a  perfect  stranger  to  them,  and 
might  have  remained  so.  By  mere  sight  he  was  never 
once  recognized  by  a  single  one  of  his  disciples  at  any 
time  after  his  re-appearance.  The  Evangelist  perceived 
that  this  failure  to  recognize  their  master  by  sight  was  a 
marvellous  affair,  and  with  a  view,  evidently,  to  avoid 
any  question  as  to  whether  it  actually  was  Jesus,  he  un- 
dertakes to  account  for  it  ;  but  does  so  in  a  manner  so 
very  Luke-ish  as  to  excite  a  smile.  He  regards  it  as 
having  been  a  miracle,  and  says  that  "  their  eyes  were 
Rolden  that  they  should  not  know  him  !  "  *  What  a  con- 
fession ! — And  what  a  silly  one !  If  there  were  reason 
enough  to  miraculously  hold  their  eyes  to  prevent  them 
from  recognizing  him  by  his  visible  appearance,  Why 
were  they  allowed,  at  the  very  first  time  there  was  any 
chance  of  danger  from  their  recognition,  to  actually  rec- 
ognize him  by  other  senses  or  other  means  than  his 
personal  appearance  ?  Luke  was,  however,  well  justified 
in  one  thing,  at  least  from  his  stand-point  : — it  did  re- 
quire a  miracle  to  account  for  their  not  recognizing  him, ' 
if  he  were  not  disguised,  a  fact  which  Luke,  of  course, 
would  never  have  thought  of  suspecting  of  his  God. 
Mark  was  less  cautious,  however,  for,  in  speaking  of  this 
same  meeting,  he  expressly  says,  not  that  the  disciples' 
"eyes  were  holden,"  but  that  Jesus  himself  "appeared 
in  another  form  !  " — (Mark  xvi.  12). 


650  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

That  Jesus  knew  he  was  unrecognizable  and  that  he 
not  only  anxiously  avoided  all  chances  of  exposure,  but 
even  avoided  and  delated  disclosing  himself,  beyond  the 
sheerest  necessity,  to  his  devoted  disciples,  until  they 
could  meet  in  greater  safety  in  Galilee,  is  here  fully 
shown.  He  not  only  suffered  these  disciples  to  take  him 
for  a  stranger,  but  he  was  •  parting  from  them,  leaving 
them  still  under  that  impression,  when  their  invitation 
to  eat  with  them  arrested  his  departure.  And  his  pre- 
cipitate and  panic  flight  when  he  found  himself  sud- 
denly recognized  in  a  place  where  he  could  not  explain, 
and  where  even  such  an  exclamation  as  that  given  by 
the  Magdalene,  on  discovering  him,  would  endanger  him, 
shows,  conclusively,  the  terror  with  which  a  mere 
chance  of  exposure  inspired  him  and  the  timid  and  cau- 
tious care  with  which  he  guarded  against  it.  And  yet, 
these  men  from  whom  he  was  concealing  his  identity, 
even  in  private,  were  not  only  devoted  followers  and 
bosom  friends,  but  one  of  them  was  his  chief  Apostle 
and  worshipper,  Simon  Peter ;  as  we  subsequently  learn 
(Luke  xxiv.  34,  35). 


After  fleeing  from  these  disciples  Jesus  followed 
them  in  the  night  into  Jerusalem,  and  entered  their 
secret  retreat  immediately  after  them.  And  here,  where 
more  necessary,  we  have  another  scene  which  proves 
his  disguisement.  He  here  came  upon  the  residue  of 
his  apostles,  and  not  one  of  them  recognized  him — not 
one  of  those  men  who  had  been  his  daily  and  nightly 


THE    ESCAPE.  65  I 

companions  for  three  years  and  up  to  the  last  three 
days,  knew  him  by  his  appearance,  although  they  knew 
he  had  left  the  sepulchre,  and  had  that  moment  been 
informed  by  their  two  companion's  that  they  had  seen 
him. 


Matthew  tells  us  that,  according  to  appointment, 
Jesus  afterwards  met  his  disciples  in  a  mountain  in 
Galilee.  And  here  we  are  told  that  some  of  his  disciples 
"  worshipped  him  :  but  some  doubted"  So  unnatural 
did  he  seem  to  them,  that  they  found  it  almost  impos- 
sible to  realize  that  it  was  him.  No  doubt  Jesus  was 
prepared,  also,  to  change  the  degree  or  character  of  the 
disguises  or  alterations  in  his  person. 


Turning  now  to  the  twenty-first  chapter  of  John,  we 
find  the  last  detailed  account  of  the  meeting  of  Jesus 
with  his  disciples.  Here  we  find,  that  the  disciples 
were  in  their  fishing  smack  in  the  sea  of  Galilee  and 
about  200  cubits  from  the  shore,  from  whence  Jesus 
hailed  and  talked  to  them.  And  yet  none  of  them  sus- 
pected who  it  was,  even  at  that  short  distance  ;  although 
they  would,  perhaps  every  man  of  them,  under  ordinary 
conditions,  have  readily  recognized  him  at  more  than 
ten  times  that  distance.  The  first  to  suspicion  his  iden- 
tity with  their  master  was  John,  but  only  on  account  of 


652  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

his  successful  direction  to  them  in  their  fishing.  The  dis- 
ciples went  ashore  and  had  a  fish-dinner  with  him ; — but 
we  are  told  that  "  none  of  his  disciples  durst  ask  him, 
Who  art  thou,  knowing  it  was  the  Lord."  Here  we  find 
that  even  at  this  late  hour  the  disciples  not  only  failed 
to  recognize  Jesus  by  his  appearance,  but  that  they  had 
learned  that  his  identity  was  a  subject  which  was  not  to 
be  mooted  or  mentioned,  except  by  himself  and  in  his 
own  time  and  way.  It  was  a '  matter  which  they  might 
know,  but  of  which,  as  yet,  they  must  not  whisper,  even. 

To  an  unbiased  mind  these  scenes  are  conclusive 
proof,  that  Jesus  was  both  completely  and  intentionally 
disguised,  and  that  he  was  anxiously  and  timidly  con- 
cealing himself  from  every  chance  of  exposure  and  re- 
arrest.  Every  word  and  act  of  his  from  the  moment  he 
left  that  sepulchre,,  was  simply  and  purely  that  of  a  dis- 
guised fugitive.  The  only  hope  of  even  the  semblance 
of  an  explanation  of  his  non-recognition  by  his  disciples, 
— namely,  the  difficulty  of  their  believing  so  marvellous 
a  fact  as  his  resurrection,  is  completely  negatived  by  the 
whole  testimony.  The  evidence  shows,  that  Jesus  did 
not  object  to  his  disciples  knowing  of  his  escape,  pro- 
vided that  they  learned  it  at  the  proper  time  and  place, 
and  with  the  proper  explanations  to  at  once  prevent 
them  from  conceiving  the  real  nature  of  the  occurrence, 
and  from  prematurely  and  improperly  exposing  the  fact 
of  his  escape,  with  the  view  of  preventing  the  exposure 
of  the  complicity  of  his  benefactors,  as  well  as  all  chances 
of  his  own  arrest.  At  night,  and  in  assured  secrecy,  he 
was  not  afraid  to  meet  them  and  let  them  know  who  he 
was.  He  dared  not  confess  the  real  means  and  mode  of 


THE    ESCAPE.  653 

his  recovery  and  escape,  firstly  :  because  even  if  he 
himself  had  been  willing  to  trust  that  dangerous  secret 
to  so  many  persons,  his  benefactors  would  have  forbid- 
den any  idea  of  such  a  thing  ;  and  secondly  :  his  own 
past  teachings,  pretensions,  and  relations  to  these  men 
rendered  it  almost  impossible  to  confess  his  final  humil- 
iating and  mere  human  failure.  Nor  did  these  disciples 
stick  at  the  mere  marvellousness  of  any  power  which 
Jesus  might  have  been  supposed  to  have  exercised  :  it 
was  not  their  habit.  It  was  nothing  of  that  kind  which 
prevented  them  from  recognizing  his  person.  The  Mag- 
dalene and  the  two  disciples  both  recognized  and  believed 
in  his  vital  presence,  instantly  and  without  explanation 
or  assurance,  from  mere  voice  and  manner.  It  was  not 
that  they  did  not  or  could  not  recognize  him  and  believe 
in  his  identical  bodily  life  and  presence,  but  that  they 
could  not  recognize  him  by  his  personal  appearance  at 
ail ;  while  they  did  recognize  him  by  a  single  word  or 
habit.  Their  eyes,  only,  were  "  holden,"  and  those  only 
in  the  matter  of  personal  appearance.  This  was  the  sole 
difficulty.  And  this,  also,  is  conclusive  proof  that  his 
personal  appearance  was  thoroughly  altered  and  dis- 
guised. Was  he  a  disguised  and  fugitive  God,  or  a  dis- 
guised and  fugitive  man  ? 


There  is  another  fact  which  bears  upon  the  question 
of  the  resurrection  and  divinity  of  Jesus,  that  deserves  a 
brief,  but  serious  consideration.  Since  the  failure  of  the 


654  JESUS   AND   RELIGION. 

palpably  temporal  and  openly  avowed  schemes  of  Jesus 
to  become  "  King  of  the  Jews,"  and  his  consequent  pros- 
ecution and  punishment,  it  has  been  claimed  that  he 
fully  contemplated  these  results  from  the  beginning ; 
and  that  he  had  frequently  and  plainly  told  his  disciples 
that  he  was  to  be  crucified,  but  that,  on  the  third  day 
after,  he  would  arise  from  the  dead.  How  far  is  this 
claim  justified  by  the  facts  ?  In  those  characteristic  and 
extreme  fits  of  depression  and  despondency — those  fits 
in  which  he  became  so  "exceeding  sorrowful,"  and  to 
which  he  became  more  and  more  subject,  and  at  times 
when  he  felt  most  keenly  the  toils  of  his  enemies  closing 
round  him,  and  his  mind  was  despondingly  contemplat- 
ing the  natural  results  of  a  failure  of  his  politico-religious 
schemes,  it  is  quite  conceivable  that  even  his  forebodings 
of  coming  failure  and  death  may  have  found  expression 
in  a  general  way,  in  the  presence  of  his  disciples.  But, 
that  he  originally  expected,  or  habitually  contemplated, 
or  endeavored  to  make  his  disciples  believe,  that  he 
would  die  on  the  cross  and  rise  again  on  the  third  day, 
was  never  claimed  or  pretended  by  himself,  and  is  in 
irreconcilable  conflict  with  the  entire  facts  as  they  are 
reported  in  the  gospels  themselves.  The  supposition  is 
not  only  in  conflict  with  the  entire  pretensions  and 
efforts  of  both  Jesus  and  his  disciples  before  the  cruci- 
fixion, but  with  both  their  conduct  and  declarations  af- 
terwards. The  idea  of  inserting  these  pre-declarations 
of  his  earthly  fate  into  his  previous  life  was  clearly  an 
after-thought,  and  was  the  result  of  the  endeavor  to  re- 
mould the  primary  purposes,  language  and  public  con- 
duct of  Jesus  into  conformity  with  the  subsequent  facts, 
and  with  the  remodelled  conception  of  Jesus  and  his 


THE    ESCAPE.  655 

mission  which  they  necessitated.  Their  subsequent 
theory,  that  Jesus  was  a  self-ordained  sacrifice  for  hu- 
man sins,  through  his  death  on  the  cross,  compelled 
them  to  present*him  as  having  foreknown  and  intended 
the  results  which  actually  occurred.  To  do  this,  they 
had  to  represent  him  as  pre-declaring  them,  and  exhibit- 
ing his  knowledge  of  what  he  had  to  go  through.  This, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  makers  and  manipulators  of  the 
gospels  would  not  hesitate  to  do, — nay,  would  consider 
it  a  service  which  it  would  be  commendable  to  perform. 

But,  How  stand  the  facts  in  this  matter  ?  Have  we 
not  shown,  that  the  habitual  purpose  and  hope  of  both 
Jesus  and  his  apostles,  during  the  whole  latter  half  of 
his  public  career,  were,  that  Jesus  should  temporarily 
triumph  and  reign  as  Messianic  king  over  the  Jews  ?  It 
is  absurd,  indeed,  to  suppose  that  Jesus  and  his  disciples 
made  the  efforts  they  did  to  secure  his  acceptance  by 
the  Jewish  people  alone,  and  to  make  him  their  king, 
and  were  so  sorrowful  and  indignant  at  failures  and  op- 
position, when  Jesus  all  the  time  contemplated  and 
knew,  and  frequently  and  plainly  told  his  disciples,  that 
he  should  be  rejected  by  the  Jews,  and  suffer  crucifixion 
for  those  very  pretensions  and  efforts.  If  Jesus  had  as 
specifically  and  unequivocally  told  his  disciples  that 
their  joint  efforts  were  to  end  in  his  crucifixion,  as  it  is 
now  claimed  that  he  did,  it  would  have  been  quite  im- 
possible for  all  of  those  men  to  have  either  misunder- 
stood or  forgotten  such  a  matter.  The  fact  that  he  was 
to  be  crucified  was  one  never  to  have  been  forgotten  by 
those  devoted  servants,  and  was  one  which  it  was  impos- 
sible for  any  one  to  have  misunderstood  ;  and  so  also 


656  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

with  the  fact  that  he  was  to  rise  again  from  the  dead  on 
the  third  day.  Nor  would  his  disciples  have  continued 
to  labor  with  him  in  a  cause  which  they  knew,  or  which 
he  seriously  informed  them,  would  brin"g  them,  not  only 
failure  and  trouble  as  its  result,  but  also  the  crucifixion 
of  their  beloved  leader. 

But  how  stood  matters  at,  and  after,  these  events 
were  supposed  to  have  occurred  ?  Do  we  find  the  dis- 
ciples expecting  these  pre-announced  results,  or  even 
reminded  of  their  pre-announcement  by  their  successive 
occurrence  ?  Does  either  their  conduct  or  declarations 
prove  consistent  with  the  fact  of  their  having  been  pre- 
assured  of  their  coming  to  pass  ?  Does  the  language  of 
Jesus  himself  to  his  disciples  when  he  again  met  them, 
justify  any  such  conclusion  ?  No.  To  the  contrary  we 
find  his  disciples  utterly  astounded  at  the  unsuccessful 
and  fatal  termination  of  his  past  pretensions  and 
schemes.  Instead  of  finding  them  anticipating  his  res- 
urrection on  the  third  day,  we  find  them  buying  spices 
and  preparing  to  bury  him  that  very  day,  without  a 
thought  or  hope  of  ever  seeing  him  again.  We  find 
that,  even  after  they  were  repeatedly  told  that  he  was 
out  and  alive  by  those  who  had  conversed  with  him, 
they  could  not  make  up  their  minds  to  believe  it.  The 
fact  was  so  unexpected  that,  on  hearing  it,  they  regarded 
it  as  an  idle  tale.  -  And  even  to  the  last,  when  he  met 
them  in  Galilee  by  appointment,  "  Some  doubted."  Is 
it  possible  that  all  these  men  could  have-  so  acted,  if 
their  master  had  repeatedly  and  plainly  told  them  that 
these  identical  things  were  to  happen  ?  Are  we  to  sup- 
pose that  all  these  men  were  stark  idiots  ? 


THE    ESCAPE.  657 

But  again  :  What  were  the  declarations  of  these  men 
themselves  ?  The  two  disciples  who  walked  and  con- 
versed with  Jesus  about  himself,  without  knowing  him, 
informed  him  that  Jesus  was  a  mighty  "  prophet,"  whom 
the  Jewish  rulers  had  caused  to  be  condemned  and  cru- 
cified. The  disciple  then  continues  to  say — "  But  we 
trusted  that  it  had  been  he  which  should  have  redeemed 
Israel :  and  besides  all  this,  to-day  is  the  third  day  since 
these  things  were  done.  Yea,  and  certain  women  also 
of  our  company  made  us  astonished,  which  were  early  at 
the  sepulchre :  And  when  they  found  not  the  body, 
they  came,  saying,  that  they  had  seen  a  vision  of  angels, 
which  said  he  was  alive." 

Here  we  have  just  what  the  disciples  thought  of 
Jesus  and  of  his  real  purposes  prior  to  his  crucifixion, 
and  before  they  had  been  re-indoctrinated  at  all.  They 
regarded  him  as  a  mere  man — a  mighty  prophet,  and  Jtad 
trusted,  until  his  death  had  destroyed  all  hope,  that  he 
was  the  one  who  " should  have"  redeemed, — not  sinners 
or  the  world  generally,  but  Israel.  There  was  no  thought 
of  his  having  been  anything  else  than  a  redeemer  of 
Israel — no  thought  of  his  being  a  God  or  a  divine  vica- 
rious sacrifice  for  human  sins,  or  of  there  being  any  fur- 
ther hope  after  he  was  crucified.  The  only  effect  which 
the  report  of  his  being  alive  had  upon  them,  was  to 
make  them  "  astonished."  Are  these  facts  at  all  con- 
sistent with  the  fact  that  these  men  had  been  repeatedly 
and  plainly  pre-informed  of  the  fact  and  manner  of  his 
death,  and  of  his  resurrection  on  the  third  day,  and  of 
the  consequent  impossibility  of  his  being  what  they 

"  had  trusted  "  he  was  to  be,  up  to  the  last  ? 

42 


658  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

What  is  John's  explanation  of  the  matter  ?  He  and 
Peter,  disbelieving  the  women's  story,  went  to  the  sep- 
ulchre to  see  for  themselves  ;  and  when  they  found  mat- 
ters as  we  have  stated,  we  are  told  that  John  believed,  and 
it  is  then  added — "  For  as  yet  they  knew  not  the  scripture, 
that  he  must  arise  from  the  dead."  Here  is  proof  that 
even  the  "  beloved  disciple  "  and  the  "  chief  of  the  apos- 
tles," required  ocular  proof  to  convince  them  that  he  was 
not  still  in  the  sepulchre.  And  here,  also,  is  the  positive 
declaration,  that  they  never  had  heard  of  any  scripture 
that  the  Messiah  was  to  rise  from  the  dead  ;  as  well 
as  the  implied  declaration  or  admission  that  they  had 
never  heard  of  any  such  thing  from  Jesus  himself  ;  since 
the  very  fact  that  their  ignorance  and  incredulity  is  ac- 
counted for  by  the  excuse,  that  "  as  yet "  they  had  not 
learned  that  the  scripture  foretold  the  resurrection,  shows 
that  the  scriptures  were  the  only  source  from  which 
there  could  be  any  pretence  of  their  having  learned  it — 
shows,  indeed,  that  the  idea  of  their  having  been  directly 
or  verbally  informed  of  it,  had  never  been  thought  of. 

Mr.  Beecher  says  of  the  disciples  at  this  time,  that 
"  They  believed  in  an  earthly  kingdom  for  the  Messiah, 
and,  with  the  rest  of  their  people,  anticipated  a  carnal 
triumph  of  the  Jews  over  all  their  enemies.  They  could 
not  be  made  to  understand  that  their  master  was  to  be 
put  to  death  ;  and  when  he  was  arrested  they  all  forsook 
him  and  fled.  They  hovered  in  bewilderment  around 
the  solemn  tragedy,  etc."  Can  it  be,  that  such  a  man 
as  Mr.  Beecher  can  believe  this  of  the  apostles,  and  yet 
believe  that  they  had  been  told  of  such  unmistakable 
facts  as  the  death  and  resurrection  of  a  man,  and  as  often 


THE    ESCAPE.  659 

and  as  unmistakably  told  as  they  are  asserted  to  have 
been  in  the  gospels — as  plainly  and  unmistakably,  for 
example,  as  the  following  language  would  show  :  "  While 
they  abode  in  Galilee,  Jesus  said  unto  them,  the  Son  of 
man  shall  be  betrayed  into  the  hands  of*  man  :  And  they 
shall  kill  him,  and  the  third  day  he  shall  be  raised  again. 
And  they  were  exceeding  sorry  " — (Matt.  xvii.  22,  23)  ? 
How  could  anybody,  outside  of  an  idiot  asylum,  mistake 
such  language  ?  And  How  could  they  be  "  exceeding 
sorry  "  if  they  did  not  understand  him  ?  No  :  it  will  not 
do  to  attempt  to  shield  the  gospels  and  Jesus  and  the 
Christian  theory  by  making  the  apostles  idiots ;  for 
here  is  language  which  any  ordinary  idiot  would  under- 
stand, and  which  the  gospel  confesses  they  did  under- 
stand and  sorrowed  over.  The  fact  is,  that  the  dis- 
ciples had  never  been  told  any  such  thing ;  nor  was  any 
such  thing  known  by  Jesus,  as  the  language  and  con- 
duct of  the  whole  of  them  clearly  prove. 

It  is  true,  that  Jesus  spoke  rebukingly  to  his  dis- 
ciples for  their  lack  of  faith,  as  was  his  custom  when- 
ever they  failed  to  do  or  think  as  he  wished  ;  but  he 
had  not  the  hardihood  to  charge  them  with  lack  of  faith 
in  anything  that  he  had  said,  but  only  with  lack  of  faith 
in  what  the  scriptures  had  said.  He  speaks  of  the  mat- 
ter twice.  The  first  time  was  when  he  was  going  to 
Emmaus, — when  he  said,  "  O  fools,  and  slow  of  heart  to 
believe  all  that  the  prophets  have  spoken :  ought  not 
Christ  to  have  siiffered  these  things,  and  to  have  entered 
into  his  glory."  And  he  then  went  on  to  expound  the 
scriptures  to  them.  When  he  first  met  all  his  disciples 
together,  Luke  reports  him  as  saying,  "  These  are  the 
words  which  J  spake  unto  you,  while  I  was  with  you, 


66O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

that  all  things  must  be  fulfilled,  which  were  written  in 
the  law  of  Moses,  and  in  the  prophets,  and  in  the 
psalms,  concerning  me.  Then  opened  he  their  under- 
standing, that  they  might  understand  the  scriptures''' 
Here,  and  here  only,  he  is  reported  as  referring  to  what 
he  had  formerly  told  them  ;  and  here  he  not  only  does 
not  intimate  that  he  had  told  them  of  the  facts,  but 
raises  a  conclusive  presumption  that  he  had  not.  What 
was  it  he  professes  to  have  told  them  ? — that  he  was  to 
be  crucified  or  to  resurrect  ?  No.  He  simply  reminds 
them  that  he  had  told  them,  generally,  that  all  the 
things,  of  every  kind,  which  the  law,  the  prophets  and 
the  psalms  had  said  about  him — as  the  Christ — would 
be  fulfilled  ;  and  he  then  went  on  to  specifically  show 
them  what  these  scriptures  said  and  meant  as  to  the 
death  and  resurrection  of  the  Christ,  without  ever  in- 
timating that  he  had  ever  before  told  them  what  even 
the  scriptures  had  said  on  these  special  matters,  much 
less  claiming  that  he  himself  had  pre-announced  to  them 
the  very  facts  themselves.  And  yet,  Can  there  be  a 
doubt  that,  if  he  had  really  and  specifically  told  them  in 
the  language  quoted  from  Matthew,  and  they  were  still 
incredulous,  he  would  have  then  referred  to  what  he  had 
formerly  told  them,  and  to  the  very  times  and  places 
that  he  had  said  it  ? 

When  the  whole  facts  are  fully  and  fairly  analyzed, 
compared  and  understood,  the  conclusion  is  resistless, 
that  neither  Jesus  nor  his  disciples  anticipated  any  such 
results  to  their  schemes  and  labors.  It  was  only  after 
his  rejection,  failure,  punishment  and  re-appearance, — 
only,  also,  when  he  dared  not  tell  his  disciples  the  real 


THE    ESCAPE.  66 1 

facts  as  to  his  recovery  from  his  punishment,  that  we 
find  him  driven,  in  lieu  of  explaining  Why  and  How  he 
was  still  alive,  to  go  into  long  disquisitions  on  matters 
recited  in  the  "  law  of  Moses,  and  in  the  prophets,  and 
in  the  psalms,"  to  convince  these  ignorant,  illiterate  and 
confiding  men,  that  the  whole  thing  was  scriptural,  and 
"  ought "  to  have  happened  to  the  Christ ;  and  to  sat- 
isfy their  hopes  by  assuring  them  of  his  almost  imme- 
diate and  triumphant  second  coming !  Here,  in  the 
sheer  necessities  of  the  situation,  commenced  that  re- 
construction of  the  conception  of  the  Jewish  Messiah, 
and  that  entire  change  of  the  idea  of  the  nature  of  Jesus 
and  of  his  mission  and  purpose,  which  converted  his  un- 
successful efforts  for  a  Jewish  throne  and  his  partial, 
crucifixion  for  treason  and  his  natural  recovery  from  his 
punishment  and  his  secret  escape,  into  a  divinely  or- 
dained and  prophetically  foretold  process  of  slaying  the 
<rlamb  of  God  "  for  the  "  sins  of  the  world  : " — a  change 
which  remodelled  the  Jewish  Jehovah  into  a  tri-personal 
God,  and  injected  this  condemned  Nazarene  carpenter, 
body  and  soul,  into  this  triple  Godhead ! 

"  Great  God  on  what  a  slender  thread 
Hang  everlasting  things  1 '' 


Having  divested  this  so-called  resurrection  of  the 
factitious  support  furnished  by  its  pretended  prophetic 
annunciations  by  Jesus  himself,  we  will  consider,  a  little 


662  JESUS    AND   RELIGION. 

more  closely,  a  special  series  of  apparently  side-perform- 
ances, whose  actors,  although  unobtrusive,  unannounced 
and  unapplauded,  seem  to  emerge  from  the  side-wings 
of  the  stage  at  every  act  of  the  drama,  and  noiselessly 
shift  the  scenes  and  manage  the  entire  machinery  of  the 
play.  These  facts  are  as  conclusive  in  their  nature  as 
the  facts  of  his  disguise  and  flight,  and,  like  those  facts, 
have  that  singularity  and  apparent  unaccountableness 
which  can  find  their  only  explanation  in  the  true  theory 
of  the  facts. 


While  the  disciples  were  preparing  to  bury  Jesus, 
without  the  slightest  belief  in  his  divinity  or  in  his  res- 
urrection or  reappearance,  there  were  two  men,  at  least, 
who  not  only  believed,  but  knew  that  he  would  reap- 
pear, and  whose  conduct  throughout  is  conclusive  proof, 
not  only  that  he  would  reappear  alive,  but  that  he  had 
never  been  dead.  When  Jesus  was  crucified,  his  clothes 
were  taken  ;  and  when  he  was  placed  in  the  sepulchre 
he  had  no  clothing  save  the  linen  cloth  and  napkin 
which  were  wrapped  round  his  body  and  head,  respec- 
tively. By  one  account  it  would  seem  that  the  Magda- 
lene discovered  him  while  he  was  yet  in  his  grave- 
clothes.  This  was  just  before  daylight.  When  he  was 
first  recognized,  a  few  minutes  later,  he  had  put  on 
strange  clothing,  suitable  for  a  gardener.  The  great 
stone  had  been  moved  from  the  door  of  the  sepulchre 
when  they  first  visited  it.  There  were  two  men  there 
besides  Jesus.  These  men  not  only  knew  that  he  was 


THE    ESCAPE.  663 

alive,  but  announced  that  fact  to  his  friends  before  day- 
light, and  delivered  to  them  the  message  and  commands 
of  Jesus  to  his  disciples,  and  showed  themselves  to  be 
conversant  with  the  whole  facts  and  with  the  wishes  ana 
purposes  of  Jesus,  and  to  be  his  agents  and  mouth- 
pieces in  the  whole  affair.  Let  any  person,  still  amen- 
able to  reason,  candidly  ask  and  answer  to  themselves 
the  following  questions,  in  the  presence  of  the  whole 
facts  connecting  these  two  men  with  this  entire  drama, 
namely  : 

i.  Who  were  those  two  men,  who  were  thus  cogniz- 
ant of,  and  thus  controlling,  these  secret,  mysterious  and 
night-shrouded  events  ?  Were  they  the  same  two  men 
whom  Jesus  had  induced  the  disciples  to  believe  to  have 
been  Moses  and  Elias,  when  they  came  to  Galilee  and 
secretly  met  him  at  night  on  a  mountain  ?  Were  these 
the  secret  coadjutors  of  Jesus  and  members  of  the  San- 
hedrim who  furnished  him  with  information  of  the 
secret  purposes  and  movements  of  the  Jewish  rulers  and 
of  the  intended  treachery  of  Judas,  and  who  sent  him 
the  consoling  messenger  in  Gethsemane  ?  Were  these 
the  men  who  stood  his  friends  at  his  trial  before  the 
Sanhedrim,  and  before  his  crucifixion,  and  while  on  the 
cross,  and  when  taken  to  the  sepulchre  of  one  of  them  ? 
Are  these  the  same  two  men, — always  true  but  always 
secret,  now  continuing  to  secure  and  manage  his  escape 
and  flight  ?  It  appears  that  the  two  women  despaired  of 
being  able  to  roll  the  stone  from  the  door  of  the  sepul- 
chre, and  perhaps  even  one  man  could  not ;  and  it  is 
conceded  by  the  Gospels  that  Jesus,  instead  of  rising 
through  the  very  rock  itself  or  rolling  away  the  stone  by 
a  word,  like  a  God,  had  to  wait  until  the  rock  was  re- 


664  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

moved  for  him  :  What  two  men,  then,  removed  that 
rock  ?  Who  dared  intermeddle  with  that  sepulchre,  save 
Joseph  of  Arimathea,  to  whom  both  it  and  the  body  be- 
longed— seeing  that  the  disciples  had  neither  intermed- 
dled with,  nor  approached  it  ?  J  t?:- 

2.  Whoever  these   two   men    might  have  been,  the 
question  again  is — Why  were  they  at  the  tomb  of  Jesus, 
outside  of  the  city  gates,  just  before  day  and  "when  it 
was  yet  dark,"  and  on  that  particular  night  of  all  other 
nights  ?     Can  any  conceivable   motive  or  reason  be  as- 
signed for  their  opportune  presence  at  such  an  hour  and 
such  a  place,  on  that  special  night,  upon  the  supposition 
that  Jesus  was  a  genuine  corpse,  and  already  prepared 
and  ready  for  burial,  and  when  he  was  to  be  buried  by 
his  old  disciples  ? 

3.  Were  they  there  to  furnish  the  clothes  and  the 
means  of  that  disguise  which  we  have  seen  Jesus  after- 
wards exhibit,  and   of  enabling  him  to  get  out  of  the 
sepulchre    and    reappear   in    that    "  other  form  "  which 
Mark  tells  us  about  ? 

4.  Can    any  possible    hypothesis    account  for  their 
presence  there  'at  such  a  time  and  under  such  circum- 
stances, and  for  their  having  such  secret  knowledge  of 
the  secret  purposes   of  Jesus,  and   their  acting   as  his 
spokesmen  to  his  own  disciples,  which  does  not  also  in- 
volve  the  facts   that  they  were  designedly  there  as  the 
trusted  friends  and  helpers  of  Jesus,  and  that  they  knew 
that  he  was  alive  before  they  came,  and  came  because 
they  knew  it  ?     Otherwise,  What  right  or  What  motive 


THE    ESCAPE.  665 

could  they  have  had  to  come  there  at  all,-5— much  more 
at  such  an  hour  and  on  this  special  occasion  ?  Or  Why 
take  out,  at  night,  a  live  mans  clothing  to  a  corpse  that 
was  already  clothed  for  burial  ?  Why  did  they  assume 
to  act  for  Jesus,  and  without  telling  the  disciples  who 
they  were,  or  giving  them  a  word  of  explanation  as  to 
how  or  when  they  came  there,  or  why  they  were  there 
at  all,  or  why  they;  were  concerned  in  the  matter  at  all  ? 
Can  this  state  of  facts  be  even  forced  into  consistency 
with  any  possible  theory,  save  one  based  on  their  pre- 
vious knowledge  that  he  was  alive  and  of  their  being 
there  to  aid  him  in  his  escape  ?  Jesus  was  helped  out 
of  the  sepulchre,  was  furnished  new  clothes  and  the 
means  of  disguisement,  and  whoever  did  it  must  have 
known  that  he  was  alive,  and  haye  come  prepared  and 
on  puroose  to  -ender  him  these  services. 

5.  If  these  men  must  have  known,  and  did  know, 
that  he  was  alive  before  they  came  that  night,  How  and 
When  did  they  learn  it  ?  They  would  not  go,  without 
any  motive,  and  open  a  private  sepulchre  containing  a 
corpse,  and  much  less  on  the  sabbath  day ;  and  had 
they  done  so  and  found  him  alive,  it  would  have  been 
equally  fatal  to  the  Christian  theory  ;  since  he  was  to 
remain  dead  until  the  third  day,  according  to  that 
theory.  They  must,  therefore,  have  known  it  prior  to 
the  sabbath,  and  that  would  place  their  knowledge  of 
the  fact  to  a  period  before  sundown  on  the  day  he  was 
executed.  And  this  would  conclusively  show  both  the 
fact  of  continued  life,  and  that  these  men  must  have 
been  Joseph  and  Nicodemus  : — just  what  we  have  con- 
tended for.  It  would  seem  utterly  impossible  for  any 


666  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

fair  mind  to  reflect  upon  the  entire  series  of  facts  and 
considerations  mentioned,  and  view  them  in  relation 
with  the  whole  facts,  and  yet  fail  to  perceive  that  Jesus 
was  not  only  assisted,  secretly  and  at  night,  by  secret 
and  trusted  friends,  but  that  his  exit  from  the  sepul- 
chre that  night  had  been  pre-arranged  and  provided  for 
by  the  two  men  who  were  actually  helping  him  and  act- 
ing for  him  when  his  disciples  first  came  ;  and  that 
these  men  were  Joseph  and  Nicodemus, — who  had  had 
control  of  both  him  and  the  sepulchre,  and  who  knew 
that  he  was  alive  even  when  he  was  first  placed  there. 
These  men  were  undoubtedly  the  only  men  of  distinc- 
tion who  had  been  concerned  in  the  Messianic  schemes 
of  Jesus,  and  they,  only  in  the  most  guarded  and  secret 
way.  They  proved  sagacious  and  loyal  friends  to  Jesus 
until  they  secured  his  final  escape.  That  once  accom- 
plished, they  disappear  from  the  New  Testament  his- 
tory. Through  all  the  excitement  about  his  resurrection, 
even  in  the  Pentecostal  times,  they  seem  not  to  have 
been  at  all  impressed  by  the  fiery  annunciations  of  the 
divine  resurrection  of  their  friend.  By  the  gospel  ac- 
counts we  would  be  led  to  suppose,  that  Joseph  and 
Nicodemus  took  him  to  Joseph's  sepulchre  and  there 
left  him,  without  ever  again  going  to  see,  or  even  ever 
inquiring,  what  had  become  of  him,  or  ever  paying  the 
slightest  attention  to  all  the  flaming  stories  about  his 
resurrection.  Such  a  sudden  and  continued  silence  and 
such  a  strange  abandonment  of  the  body  under  their 
charge,  are  utterly  incomprehensible  on  the  Christian 
theory.  Our  theory,  however,  throws  their  whole  con- 
duct and  motives  into  one  continuous  congruity,  and 
shows  us  very  plainly  why  these  secret  friends  of  Jesus, 


THE   ESCAPE. 

who  were  behind  the  curtain,  were  unmoved  by  all  the 
fiery  annunciations  of  the  divine  resurrection  and  God- 
hood  of  Jesus.  They  had  no  need  to  be  informed  about 
what  occurred' in  or  about  that  sepulchre  by  Peter  and 
Stephen, — who  were  not  there,  and  did  not  know.  They 
were  quite  satisfied  for  others  to  believe  them.  They 
evidently  had  some  private  theory  of  their  own  about 
the  matter  which  was  satisfactory  to  themselves,  and, 
seeing  that  the  whole  affair  was  drifting  in  quite  a  safe 
and  desirable  direction,  they  silently  let  it  drift ;  glad  to 
have  thus  escaped. 


668  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 


v    .'»?•" 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

THE    BLACK    CURTAIN    FALLS. 

HAVING  considered  the  evidence  touching  the  re- 
covery, disguise,  escape,  after-conduct,  after-explanations 
and  flight  of  Jesus,  and  the  opinion  which  his  disciples 
entertained  of  him  and  of  his  pretensions  and  purposes, 
prior  to  their  being  re-indoctrinated  after  his  supposed 
resurrection  from  death,  we  may  now  direct  our  attention 
to  the  closing  scene  of  this  gospel  drama,  and  determine 
whether  there  was  an  exit  to  heaven  of  the  chief  actor, 
or  whether  the  curtain  fell  while  he  was  still  upon  the 
stage  of  mundane  life. 

And  here,  if  nowhere  else,  we  have  a  right  to  expect 
to  be  furnished  with  unequivocal  evidence  and  clear  de- 
tails, as  well  as  concordant  accounts  in  all  the  gospels. 
Before  their  separation  from  Jesus,  the  great  body  of  his 
disciples  had  been  thoroughly  drilled  into  the  belief  of 
his  actual  resurrection  from  death,  and  were  prepared  to 
recognize  his  divine  nature  as  its  legitimate  consequence, 
and,  consequently,  felt  bound  to  implicitly  credit  his  exe- 
getical  representations  of  the  Scriptural  Christ.  They 
would  have  looked  to,  and  have  known  that  other  be- 
lievers would  look  to,  the  final  exit  of  this  now  accred- 


THE    BLACK    CURTAIN    FALLS.  669 

ited  God  with  the  profoundest  interest.  And,  as  they 
would  all  probably  witness  it,  there  would  be  every  rea- 
son to  expect  a  graphic  and  concordant  description  of 
the  wonderful  event. 

We  have  a  right,  also,  to  expect,  that  here,  if  no 
where  else,  Jesus  would  have  manifested  his  divinity  by 
the  most  unmistakable  proofs,  and  in  the  manner  most 
calculated  to  justify  the  faith  of  his  followers  and  to  se- 
cure the  faith  of  others.  If  it  could  be  said  of  the  time 
of  his  resurrection,  that  then,  if  never  before,  there  was 
every  and  unrestrained  motive  for  the  most  public,  de- 
cisive and  efficient  demonstration  of  his  Godhood,  how 
much  more  indisputably  it  might  be  said  of  the  time  of 
his  final  ascension  or  departure  from  Earth  ?  Surely 
this  unrestrained  and  final  earthly  act  and  proof  of  his 
Godhood  would  be  made  public,  resistless,  and  indeli- 
ble. If  the  mere  place  and  publicity  of  an  already  in- 
tended act  or  even  the  costless  display  of  power  would 
justify  his  faithful  followers  before  the  world,  would  save 
the  life  of  the  devoted  Stephen  and  the  lives  of  count- 
less other  martyrs,  and  save  the  incredulity  and  conse- 
quent damnation  of  countless  millions  of  those  he  had 
come  to  save,  surely  he  would  not  finally  disregard  these 
potent  and  palpable  considerations.  If  he  had  already 
determined  to  bodily  ascend  up  into  the  sky,  should 
we  not  expect,  at  least,  that  he  would  have  consented 
to  perform  that  act  publicly,  and  in  a  convincing  and 
beneficent  manner — that  he  would,  for  example,  have  as- 
cended in  broad  daylight,  in  the  full  sight  of  all  Jeru- 
salem, from  the  summit  of  the  Temple,  under  the  con- 
voy of  his  "  forty  legions  of  angels,"  and  have  caused  the 


6/O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

old  Jewish  altar  of  sacrifice,  which  had  reeked  for  so  many 
centuries  with  the  blood  of  innocent  victims,  to  crumble 
into  dust  as  the  new  and  accepted  divine  sacrifice  as- 
cended to  Heaven  to  lay  his  offering  before  the  throne 
of  his  Divine  Father  ?  Here,  at  least,  in  his  final  ascen- 
sion, he  would  certainly  exempt  the  Jews  and  all  other 
men  from  being  compelled  to  depend  for  their  salvation 
upon  their  belief  in  •  facts  solely  depending  upon  the 
"say-so"  of  his  own  blindly  obedient  followers,  and 
credulous  and  trained  witnesses  ;  and  would  forever  si- 
lence the  possibility  of  a  suspicion  of  mistake,  incom- 
petence or  collusion  in  the  witnesses,  or  of  trickery  or 
deception  by  himself.  With  these  natural  and  legiti- 
mate expectations  as  to  this  Divine  Saviour  of  the 
World,  let  us  proceed  to  review  the  realities. 


It  is  manifest  to  every  unbiased  and  informed  mind, 
that  mere  vague  or  conflicting  reports  of  Jesus  having 
bodily  ascended  into  Heaven,  which  might  have  been 
found  circulating  among  the  credulous  early  Christians 
many  years  after  the  supposed  event,  would  be  entitled  to 
no  credit.  After  he  was  once  apotheosized,  such  a  mythic 
conclusion  was  certain. to  be  reached,  sooner  or  later. 
It  is  still  more  certain  that,  had  any  such  event  actually 
occurred,  it  would  have  been  remembered,  in  its  minut- 
est details,  by  all  who  saw  it,  to  the  last  day  of  their 
lives,  and  the  day  would  have  been  held  sacred  through 
all  generations.  Such  a  stupendous  exhibition  of  divine 
power  would  necessarily  have  formed  a  part  of  every 


THE  BLACK  CURTAIN  FALLS. 

sermon,  and  have  found  the  foremost  place,  among  so 
many  other  petty  details,  in  all  the  gospels,  and  be  re- 
cited with  all  the  minuteness  its  importance  would 
demand.  If,  on  the  contrary,  the  story  were  not  a  real- 
ity, but  a  legend,  of  after  and  mythic  growth,  we  should 
expect  it  to  be  more  vague  and  general,  less  natural  and 
coherent,  most  probably  told  by  only  a  part  of  the  gos- 
pels, and  told  differently  by  those  that  did  record  it. 
We  should  probably  find  more  or  less  conflict  as  to  de- 
tails, and  especially  those  as  to  time  and  place,  there 
being  no  actual  facts  to  determine  and  control  these  de- 
tails. We  should  expect  to  find  evidences  of  progres- 
sive mythic  growth,  if  the  accounts  were  written  at 
different  times, — a  growth  from  the  vague  and  general 
to  the  more  definite  and  particular. 

Now,  when  we  examine  the  gospels  on  this  momen- 
tous point,  we  find  exactly  what  we  did  not  expect,  and 
nothing  which  we  had  a  right  to  expect — find  precisely 
that  state  of  facts  which  we  ought  not,  and  could  not, 
have  found  if  Jesus  were  a  Divine  Saviour  and  did 
actually  ascend  to  Heaven,  and  precisely  what  might 
have  been  expected  if  the  story  were  a  myth  and  Jesus 
were  a  mere  escaping  and  fugitive  man.  The  ascension 
is  mentioned  in  but  two  of  the  gospels.  This,  in  itself, 
is  wholly  incompatible  with  a  belief  in  the  actual  exist- 
ence of  such  a  fact.  For  such  a  fact  could  neither  be 
forgotten  nor  ignored.  The  two  accounts  which  are 
given  are  so  conflicting  as  to  be  mutually  destructive, 
and  constitute,  in  themselves,  proof  that  no  such  event 
actually  occurred — the  time  and  place  even  being  differ- 
ent. And  the  first  of  these  accounts  does  not  state  or 


6/2  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

imply,  or  intend  to  imply,  a  visible  bodily  ascension, 
even  if  we  consider  the  first  as  doing  so.  The  two 
other  gospels  not  only  do  not  even  mention  this  most 
Godlike  manifestation  of  power  of  all  his  pretended 
miracles,  but  they  positively  prove  that  it  never  existed. 
And,  taking  the  orthodox  view  of  the  authorship  of  the 
gospels,  we  at  once  perceive,  to  begin  with,  that,  if  we 
even  concede  its  assertion  by  Mark  and  Luke,  we  have 
their  mutual  contradictions,  their  total  personal  igno- 
rance of  the  facts,  the  complete  indicia  of  falsehood 
which  their  own  recitals  furnish,  and  the  entire  weight 
of  the  testimony  of  the  two  eye-witnesses.,  Matthew  and 
John,  and  much  more  even,  to  rebut  and  overthrow  their 
statements.  And  to  all  this  may  be  added  the  moral 
impossibility  of  such  an  ascension  as  is  suggested,  hav- 
ing been  made  by  a  divine  person  with  the  professed 
objects  of  Jesus. 


We  first  find  the  ascension  mentioned  in  Mark,  who 
was  probably  the  first,  also,  to  mention  it.  After  recit- 
ing the  secret  meeting  of  Jesus  with  the  "  Eleven  "  on 
the  first  night  after  his  reappearance,  Mark  says  that, 
before  he  parted  from  his  disciples,  he  spoke  to  them  of 
their  future  course  and  instructed  them  what  to  do,  etc., 
and  then  adds,  "  So  then,  after  the  Lord  had  spoken  to 
them,  he  was  received  up  into  Heaven  and  sat  on  the 
right  hand  of  God."  Thus  he  ends  the  earthly  career  of 
Jesus  with  this  first  meeting  with  his  apostles  and  with- 
in less  than  twenty-four  hours  after  he  arose,  and^  makes 


THE  BLACK  CURTAIN  FALLS.  6/3 

him   ascend  to   Heaven  from  Jerusalem,  at  night,  and 
just  after  finishing  his  instructions  to  the  disciples. 

It  was  not  even  intended  by  Mark  that  this  should 
be  taken  as  a  recital  of  observed  facts.  He  merely  states 
his  own  supposition  or  general  conclusion  as  to  what  he 
supposed  must  have  been  the  fact,  in  the  dogmatic  man- 
ner common  to  the  gospels.  Had  he  been  preaching 
the  funeral  sermon  of  St.  Stephen,  he  would  have  used 
substantially  the  same  language.  Any  Evangelist  then, 
or  preacher  now,  would  say — "  Our  beloved  brother  fin- 
ished his  earthly  labors  on  last  Monday  night,  and  was 
received  up  into  Heaven,  where  he  now  sitteth  on  the 
right  hand  of  God,"  of  any  pious  Christian  who  had 
died  in  the  faith.  But  neither  here,  nor  in  the  case  of 
Mark,  would  it  be  intended  to  intimate  that  the  person 
was  seen  ascending  to  Heaven.  And  in  this  case  it 
would  have  been  impossible  for  the  disciples  to  have 
seen  him  ascend  even  into  the  sky,  for  they  were  hid- 
den in  a  house,  with  closed  doors,  and  he  could  not  have 
been  seen  going  up  further  than  the  ceiling.  Mark 
means  this  going  up  to  Heaven,  and  asserts  it,  just  as' 
he  means  and  asserts  that,  when  he  got  to  Heaven,  he 
seated  himself  on  the  right  hand  of  God  ;  and  yet  he 
certainly  never  meant  to  intimate  that  the  disciples  saw 
Heaven,  or  saw  Jesus  sitting  on  the  right  hand  of  God. 
He  merely  states  the  whole  as  a  matter  of  faith  and  be- 
lief. Knowing  nothing  further  of  Jesus,  Mark  simply 
concluded  that,  of  course,  he  had  gone  back  to  Heaven, 
since  he  had  no  further  business  on  Earth ;  and  that, 
equally  of  course,  he  would  have  the  post  of  honor  in 
Heaven — the  right  of  the  throne.  Had  there  been  a 
visible  ascension  he  would  have  described  it,  and  have 

43 


6/4  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

told  that  they  saw  it,  and  how  he  went  up ;  and  not 
merely  have  said,  generally,  that  he  was  received  up  into 
Heaven.  In  fact,  Mark's  statement,  instead  of  confirm- 
ing the  fact  of  a  visible  and  observed  bodily  ascension, 
is  conclusive  of  the  fact  that  he  himself  had  never  heard 
of  any  such  ascension. 

This  general  suggestion  of  his  having  ascended 
bodily  into  Heaven  was  certain  to  have  arisen.  None 
of  the  apostles,  unless  it  were  Paul,  knew  what  had 
finally  become  of  Jesus  after  his  supposed  resurrection. 
Without  dying  again,  he  finally  parted  from  them,  and 
disappeared ;  and  they  may  very  naturally  have  con- 
cluded that  he  had  gone  back  to  Heaven.  Bat  such  a 
suggestion,  once  started,  would  inevitably  tend  to  assert 
itself  as  an  observed  fact,  and  to  ultimately  define  itself 
as  to  time,  place  and  circumstances.  In  other  words, 
the  myth  would  grow.  And  accordingly  we  find  the 
story  clearly  grows  under  the  kindly  hands  of  Luke — 
the  especial  evangelist  of  myths.  He  not  only  ventures 
to  hint  a  visible  ascension  in  his  gospel,  but  has  almost 
watered  and  nurtured  it  into  life  by  the  time  he  wrote 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  The  only  pretence  for  claim- 
ing an  observed  ascension,  indeed,  rests  solely  upon  the 
recitals  of  Luke,  and  even  they  do  not  fairly  and  clearly 
assert  it.  In  his  gospel  he  agrees  with  Mark  that  Jesus 
ended  his  earthly  career  on  the  night  following  his  res- 
urrection, and  that,  during  the  darkness  of  that  night, 
he  ascended  to  Heaven.  Here,  however,  the  agreement 
ends  and  the  conflict  begins.  Instead  of  having  Jesus 
ascend  from  the  secret  retreat  of  the  disciples,  in  Jeru- 
salem, after  he  had  finished  his  instructions,  as  Mark 


THE  BLACK  CURTAIN  FALLS.  675 

has  him,  he  says  that  Jesus  went  to  Bethany  that  same 
night,  and  took  his  disciples  with  him.  He  then  tells 
us  that,  having  reached  Bethany  (with  every  nook  and 
corner  of  which  he  was  familiar),  he  lifted  up  his  hands 
to  bless  his  disciples  ;  and  that  "  it  came  to  pass,  while 
he  blessed  them,  he  was  parted  from  them,  and  carried 
up  into  Heaven."  These  words  constitute  the  sole 
basis  for  the  assumption  that  the  gospels  assert  a  visible 
and  witnessed  bodily  ascension.  But,  Will  these  words 
support  any  such  assumption  ?  Luke  does  not  intimate 
that  any  one  saw  him  ascend,  but  the  fair  inference  is 
to  the  contrary, — whatever  Luke  may  have  hoped  that 
inference  would  be.  Had  they  seen  him  ascend,  that 
fact  would  certainly  have  been  stated ;  but  it  is  not. 
He  merely  says  that  he  was  "  parted "  from  them 
"  while  "  he  was  in  the  act  of  blessing  them,  and  then 
asserts  that  he  was  "  carried "  up  into  Heaven.  He 
does  not  say  how  he  was  parted  from  them  or  how  he 
was  carried  to  Heaven,  or  that  any  one  saw  either  his 
parting  or  carrying  up.  The  time  that  was  selected  for 
separating  from  them  was  that  precise  moment  when 
the  disciples  were  solemnly  absorbed  with  the  "  bless- 
ing," and  when  they  would  be  least  likely  to  have  seen 
so  sudden  a  disappearance  ;  and  Luke  does  not  make 
the  separation  consist  of  his  being  taken  up  to  Heaven, 
but  asserts  the  separation,  and  then  asserts  the  taking 
up  as  a  separate  fact.  And  the  very  fact  that  Luke 
does  not  state  the  act  of  separation,  but  merely  states 
\hefact  that  he  "  was  separated,"  shows  that  they  did  not 
know  in  what  manner  he  had  disappeared,  but  simply 
the  fact  that  he  had  disappeared,  and  disappeared  while 
the  disciples  were  least  expecting  it  and  were  absorbed 


6/6  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

by  other  thoughts  and  surrounded  by  the  solemn  dark- 
ness of  the  night.  Can  this  be  called  even  a  statement, 
much  less  any  evidence,  of  a  bodily  ascension  of  Jesus, 
seen  by  his  apostles  ?  If  Jesus,  for  any  purpose,  had 
desired  to  part  with  his  disciples  in  this  sudden  and  un- 
observed manner,  he  could  have  selected  no  better 
method  than  to  take  them  to  this  familiar  spot,  in  the 
night,  and,  while  he  had  them  unsuspectingly  and  rever- 
ently looking  up,  or  with  their  eyes  reverently  closed  to 
receive  his  blessing,  to  have  suddenly  slipped  behind 
some  concealing  object  and  noiselessly  glided  off  in  the 
night.  Such  an  event  would  meet  Luke's  statement 
fully,  except  the  subsequent  conclusion  that,  as  he  never 
appeared  again  on  Earth  he  must  have  been  taken  up  to 
Heaven.  Such  an  occurrence,  however,  would  have 
been  told  just  in  this  style  by  Luke, — the  final  conclu- 
sion and  all. 

By  the  time  Luke  wrote  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles, 
two  things  had  happened  :  the  germ  of  this  myth  had 
began  to  grow  in  the  mind  of  Luke,  but,  unfortunately, 
he  had  also  learned  the  fact  that  Jesus  could  not  possibly 
have  ascended  on  that  night  at  all.  He  had  learned  that 
Jesus  had  been  meeting  with  his  disciples  long  after  the 
time  he  had  asserted  in  his  Gospel  that  he  ascended  into 
Heaven.  Behold  the  result,  and  take  a  lesson  in  Chris- 
tian adaptation  and  myth-moulding  !  Does  Luke  confess 
and  abandon  his  error,  when  he  found  the  asserted  fact 
to  have  been  impossible  ?  Or,  Does  he  ignore  these  new 
and  delightful  evidences  of  the  fact  of  the  "  resttrrection" 
because  of  their  incompatibility  with  his  equally  delight- 
ful and  growing  myth  of  the  "ascension  ?"  Not  at  all. 


THE  BLACK  CURTAIN  FALLS.  677 

On  the  contrary,  he  magnifies  both.  He  now  tells  us, 
in  his  first  chapter,  that,  instead  of  Jesus  leaving  the 
Earth' the  first  night  after  his  resurrection,  he  remained 
and  was  seen  by  his  disciples  for  "  forty  days  "  after  he 
arose.  He  then  tells  us  an  enlarged  and  altered  st!bry 
of  the  ascension.  But,  lest  the  juxtaposition,  in  the  same 
book,  of  two  such  contradictory  statements  should  expose 
and  destroy  both,  he  leaves  out  the  time  and  place  of  the 
ascension  altogether,  so  that,  for  all  that  appears,  it  might 
have  been  on  the  noon  or  the  night  of  the  fortieth  day,  and 
have  occurred  at  Jericho  or  Beersheba.  No  rational  mind 
can  be  imposed  upon  by  such  palpable  myth-making  and 
trickery  as  this.  And,  did  thet  matter  require  it,  it  could 
be  very  clearly  shown  that,  even  in  this  last  statement, 
Luke  does  not  directly  affirm  that  any  one  saw  him  rise 
into  Heaven,  or  say  anything  which  necessarily  implies 
it.  He  evidently  still  hesitated  to  directly  affirm  what 
he  was  willing  or  desirous  for  others  to  infer.  Luke 
knew  nothing  of  the  matters  about  which  he  wrote,  and 
was  clearly  misinformed  as  to  the  whole  course  of  the 
occurrences  after  the  resurrection.  For  he  never  takes 
either  Jesus  or  the  disciples  into  Galilee  #t  all,  after  that 
event ;  nor  does  he  mention  the  fact  that  Jesus  sent 
them  word  or  orders  to  meet  him  there  ;  but,  to  the  con- 
trary of  all  this,  he  says  that  Jesus  instructed  them  to 
remain  in  Jerusalem  and  that  they  did  so  remain. 


John  and  Matthew,   who   were   personally   present 
through  it  all,  set  this  whole  account  of  Luke  aside, — 


6/8  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

the  ascension  and  all.  They  tell  us  that  Jesus  appointed 
to  meet  them  in  Galilee,  on  the  first  morning  he  reap- 
peared, and  that  both  he  and  they  actually  went  to  Gal- 
ilee ;  and  that  he  met  the  disciples  there  and  instructed 
them,  while  Luke  had  them  still  kept  in  Jerusalem  by 
express  command,  and  long  after  he  had  sent  Jesus  to 
Heaven.  Unless  both  these  men  grossly  lied,  then, 
Luke  must  have  been  misinformed  as  to  all  these  facts, 
including  that  of  the  ascension.  Neither  of  these  men, 
who  saw  him  latest,  pretend  that  he  either  died  again 
after  his  resurrection  or  that  he  left  the  Earth  in  any 
manner.  The  last  they  knew  or  recorded  of  him,  he  was 
in  full  life,  and  as  likely  to  live  out  his  "  threescore  and 
ten  years  "  as  the  best  of  them  ;  although  he  was  com- 
pelled to  spend  them  unknown  and  in  another  land. 
The  last  meeting  they  each  record  was  in  Galilee,  and 
there  they  both  leave  him,  in  full  life  and  vigor.  The 
divinity  of  Jesus  and  his  pretended  resurrection,  then, 
can  borrow  neither  light  nor  aid  from  this  gross  but 
feeble  attempt  of  Luke  to  produce  the  belief  that  he 
bodily  and  visibly  ascended  into  Heaven  on  the  night 
after  his  alleged  resurrection.  Such  a  scene,  indeed,  as 
Luke  would  have  us  believe,  would  be  morally  impossible 
to  an  Incarnate  God  that  was  ascending  to  Heaven  after 
having  finished  such  a  mission  as  is  claimed  for  Jesus. 
Such  a  tricky  sneaking  from  the  Earth  and  even  from 
his  own  disciples,  under  cover  of  night,  and  while  he  was 
pretending  to  bless  them,  would  be  physically  impossible 
to  man  and  morally  impossible  to  God  : — man  couldnt 
ascend,  and  God  wouldn't  ascend  in  such  a  w(iy. 


THE  BLACK  CURTAIN  FALLS.          679 

There  having  been  no  heavenly  exit  of  the  hero  of 
the  Gospel  drama,  Was  there  an  exit  at  all  ?  No.  The 
black  curtain  falls  upon  the  closing  drama  and  hides  the 
chief  actor  from  our  sight,  almost  while  he  is  yet  speak- 
ing. We  are  not,  indeed,  wholly  without  evidence  sug- 
gestive of  his  having  reappeared,  in  a  new  character  and 
guise,  in  the  "  after-piece."  The  scriptural  record  of 
Paul,  when  thoughtfully  examined  in  connection  with 
the  real  facts,  leaves  a  suspicion,  if  no  more,  that  he  was 
secretly  connected  with  Jesus  after  his  final  flight  from 
Palestine.  Paul  claimed  to  have  seen  a  brilliant  light 
shine  about  him  and  to  have  heard  a  voice,  in  going, 
with  others,  to  Damascus.  The  story  is  told  several 
times,  but  never  twice  alike,  even  by  Paul  himself.  But 
upon  one  point  the  evidence  is  positive  and  concordant, 
namely :  that  Paul  did  not  see  Jesus  or  the  person  who 
spoke,  at  that  time.  His  only  information  as  to  its  being 
Jesus  was  derived  through  the  voice — a  voice  which  he 
himself  admits,  not  one  of  those  who  were  with  him  ever 
heard  at  all — (Acts  xxii.  9).  If  he  ever  saw  Jesus, 
therefore,  it  was  after  this  event.  It  is  said,  that  a  dis- 
ciple of  Jesus,  named  Ananias,  was  directed  by  the  Lord 
to  go  to  Paul ;  and  in  the  twenty-second  chapter  of  Acts, 
Paul  tells  us  that  this  messenger  of  the  Lord  said  to  him 
— "  The  God  of  our  fathers  hath  chosen  thee,  that  thou 
shouldst  know  his  will,  and'see  the  Just  One,  and  shouldst 
hear  the  voice  of  his  mouth.  For  thou  shalt  be  his  wit- 
ness unto  all  men  of  what  thou  hast  seen  and  heard" 
The  plain  and  unequivocal  meaning  and  import  of  this 
communication  was,  that  Paul  should  see  and  converse 
with  Jesus  personally,  that  he  might  be  an  eye  and  ear- 
witness  to  the  fact  of  his  resurrection  and  to  the  Gospel 


68O  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

with  which  Jesus  would  entrust  him.  The  language  is 
so  specific  as  to  clearly  indicate  a  purpose  to  exclude 
any  miraculous  voice  or  communication.  And  again: 
in  'first  Corinthians  (ix.  i)  Paul  says:  "Am  I  not  an 
Apostle  ?  Am  I  not  free  ?  Have  I  not  seen  Jesus!' 
And  again  :  he  says  (Gal.  i.,  ii.),  that  he  had  been  chosen 
by  God  to  preach  Jesus  to  the  heathen  ;  and  he  vig- 
orously asserts,  that  he  had  been  dependent  upon  no 
man  for  his  Gospel  or  his  instructions.  He  says  that, 
after  his  conversion,  instead  of  going  up  to  the  old  dis- 
ciples at  Jerusalem,  from  Damascus,  he  went  into  Ara- 
bia, and  from  there  returned  to  Damascus,  and  that  he 
then  remained  three  years  before  he  returned  to  Jeru- 
salem and  first  saw  the  old  Apostles.  He  openly  claims 
to  have  been  independently  commissioned  to  preach  a 
special  Gospel  to  the  Gentiles,  as  Peter  had  been  to 
preach  the  other  Gospel  to  the  Jews  ;  and  he  stoutly 
contends  for  the  originality,  independence  and  equality 
of  both  his  own  apostleship  and  his  own  gospel  ;  and  as 
stoutly  denies  that  he  had  either  owed  anything  or 
yielded  anything  to  the  old  apostles.  Now,  as  Paul  had 
an  original  and  independent  Gospel,  specially  adapted  to 
the  Gentiles,  and  had  not  received  that  gospel,  or  his 
commission,  or  his  instructions,  or  his  knowledge  of  the 
life  and  doctrines  of  Jesus  from  the  apostles,  from  whom 
did  he  receive  them  ?  Must  •  he  not  indeed  have  seen 
and  conferred  with  Jesus  in  the  flesh,  before  he  left  the 
Earth  ?  He  says  he  saw  Jesus,  and  yet  he  says  he  did 
not  see  him  on  his  way  to  Damascus.  When  and  Where, 
then,  did  Paul  see  Jesus  and  hear  from  his  own  "mouth" 
the  gospel,  facts  and  doctrines  to  which  he  was  to  bear 
witness,  and  which  he  preached  ?  Why  did  he,  instead 


THE    BLACK    CURTAIN    FALLS.  68 1 

of  going  back  to  Jerusalem,  take  that  unexplained  wild- 
goose  flight  into  Arabia,  and  never  go  near  one  of  the 
apostles  for  years  ?  Query  ?  Did  Jesus  go,  temporarily, 
to  Damascus  on  leaving  Galilee,  under  an  assumed  name, 
and  there  meet  Paul  ;  manage  to  convert  him  ;  take  him 
with  him  to  his  final  destination  among  the  Arabs — the 
half-brothers  of  his  race  :  and,  while  thus  with  him,  in- 
doctrinate him,  and  specially  commission  him  to  the 
Gentiles  with  a  modified  gospel  ?  Whatever  were  the 
true  facts  underlying  this  Pauline  mystery,  let  us  leave 
it  with  this  query. 


We  have  now  made  as  clear  an  exposition  as  we  have 
been  able  to  make  of  the  essential  features  in  the  life, 
character,  pretensions  and  fortunes  of  the  son  of  Joseph 
and  Mary,  from  the  singularly  imperfect,  garbled  and 
unreliable  accounts  of  them  now  found  in  our  four  Gos- 
pels. And,  with  all  due  self-distrustfulness,  we  can  but 
think,  that  we  have  aided  in  solving  the  mystery  which 
the  idealizing  and  mythic  tendencies  of  past  ages  and 
the  ignorance,  devotion  and  superstition  of  his  followers 
and  worshippers  have  thrown  around  them.  We  surely 
must  have  convinced  every  rational  reader  that  Jesus  was 
a  mere  man,  and  one  distinguished  rather  for  his  demo- 
cratic sympathies,  his  unhappy  fate,  his  singular  escape, 
and  his  strange,  stupendous  and  beneficent  influence  upon 
Humanity,  than  for  any  unparalleled  qualities  of  his 


682  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

nature,  or  for  any  extraordinary  intelligence,  morality  or 
perfection  of  conduct.  •  We  think  we  have  clearly  shown, 
that  whatever  peculiar  qualities  and  powers  he  actually 
possessed  were  natural  to  him  as  a  man,  and  were  by  no 
means  exceptional  or  unknown.  We  think  we  have  ra- 
tionally and  satisfactorily  shown,  that  his  egotism  and  his 
unhappy  delusion  as  to  his  being  the  Jewish  Messiah 
and  the  fountain  and  source  of  physical  and  moral  life 
and  of  divine  pardon  and  regeneration,  had  their  primary 
source  in  his  ignorance  and  misconception  of  these  nat- 
ural qualities  and  powers  and  of  the  cause  of  diseases, 
and  were  successively  fostered  into  life  and  vigor  by  the 
peculiar  notions  and  excitements  of  his  time  and  by  his 
own  peculiar  nature,  habits  and  circumstances.  We 
think  we  have  shown  that  he  had  not  the  slightest  real 
grounds  for  supposing  himself  either  a  God,  the  son  of  a 
God,  a  miracle- worker,  a  Jewish  Christ,  3  sin-offering,  or 
a  saviour  of  men — in  the  sense  claimed.  We  think  we 
have  shown  conclusively,  that  his  entire  active  public 
career,  after  he  proclaimed  himself  the  Christ,  was  di- 
rectly, and  up  to  his  final  rejection,  directed  to  the  attain- 
ment of  the  Messianic  throne  of  Israel ;  that  he  neither 
originally  contemplated  the  failure  of  his  Jewish  efforts, 
nor  the  extension  of  those  efforts  to  the  eternal  salvation 
of  mankind,  or  beyond  the  Israelitish  people  and  Messiah- 
ship,  nor  caused  his  disciples  or  any  one  else  to  suppose 
that  he  did  so.  We  have  shown  that  he  failed  in  every 
thing  he  undertook,  and  both  cursed  and  wept  over  his 
failures  ;  and  that  his  final  triumphal  entry  into  Jerusa- 
lem as  the  King  of  the  Jews  and  its  pitiful  failure  brought 
him  to  the  cross.  We  have  shown  that  his  pretended 
execution  on  the  cross  was  neither  sufficient  to  endanger 


THE  BLACK  CURTAIN  FALLS.  683 

life,  nor  intended  to  be  so,  but  that  be  was  aided  to 
escape  death  on  the  cross,  to  recover  in  the  sepul- 
chre, and  to  escape  alive  from  the  sepulchre  and  flee 
the  country  in  disguise.  We  have  shown  the  neces- 
sity which  impelled  him  to  delude  his  disciples  as  to 
these  facts,  and  to  suffer  them  to  believe  that  he  actually 
arose  from  the  dead,  and  to  then  convince  them  that  it 
was  a  necessary  and  scripturally-predicted  incident  in 
the  career  of  the  prophesied  Christ.  We  have  shown 
how  he  succeeded  in  still  convincing  and  controlling  his 
disciples  by  reason  of  their  belief  in  his  actual  resurrec- 
tion from  the  dead  and  their  consequent  conviction  that 
he  was  a  God  ;  and  in  making  them  believe  that  his 
death  was  a  pre-determined  and  voluntary  sacrifice  for  the 
sins  of  his  disciples,  or  those  who  had  faith  in  him ;  and 
that  his  resurrection  from  death  was  for  their  justifica- 
tion and  for  their  assurance  of  immortality  and  eternal 
salvation  ;  and  how  he  induced  them  to  believe  that  his 
Messianic  reign  was  still  certain  and  imminent,  and  that 
during  that  very  generation  he  would  again  come  in  all 
his  divine  power  and  glory  : — in  short,  how  he  convinced 
them,  that  his  past  failures  were  but  the  necessary  and 
foretold  prelude  to  his  future  triumph,  and  instructed 
them  to  go  forth  and  preach  these  things  to  the  world. 
We  have  shown,  also,  that  the  apotheosis  which  was  won 
by  his  supposed  resurrection,  and  the  hopes  which  he 
inspired  by  his  promises — promises  which  stood  guaran- 
teed by  that  resurrection  and  divinity,  have  induced  his 
followers,  throughout  subsequent  ages,  to  worship  him  as 
a  God,  and  to  idealize  and  mythically  remould  his  lineage, 
his  paternity,  his  nature,  his  conception,  his  birth,  his 
life,  his  character,  his  motives,  conduct  and  designs, 


684  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

upon  the  models  of  a  perfect  man,  of  a  Son  of  God  and 
Divine  Saviour  who  had  voluntarily  sacrificed  himself 
for  the  sins  of  believers,  as  well  as  upon  that,  also,  of 
the  prophesied,  but  spiritual  Christ  and  Redeemer  of 
the  Jews  ;  and  that,  in  doing  this,  they  have,  in  utter 
disregard  of  the  real  facts,  adorned  and  divinely  glorified 
his  conception,  embryonic  life,  birth,  dedication,  bap- 
tism, temptation,  transfiguration,  agony,  punishment, 
resurrection,  etc.,  with  a  series  of  mythic  miracles  and 
indicia  which  are  as  puerile  and  absurd  as  they  were 
false  and  unreal  ;  and  have  endeavored  to  reconstruct 
the  facts  and  records  concerning  him  in  such  a  way  as 
to  justify  and  sustain  these  new  or  post-resurrection  dog- 
mas and  beliefs  and  the  myths  which  they  have  engen- 
dered. And  we  think,  finally,  that  we  have  sufficiently 
exposed  the  last  feeble  attempt  to  close  his  mythic,  as 
well  as  his  earthly  career  by  a  pretended  bodily  ascen- 
sion into  Heaven. 


If,  in  reviewing  these  subjects,  the  constant  and  gross 
perversions  and  perversities  which  we  have  been  com- 
pelled to  deal  with,  have  driven  us,  at  any  time,  into  a  se- 
verity of  either  judgment  or  expression  which  has  been 
unwarranted  or  uncalled-for,  none  could  regret  such  an 
error  more  than  ourself,  or  could  more  truthfully  say  that 
it  has  been  unintentionally  committed.  The  persistent 
endeavor  has  been  to  grasp  the  reality — the  very  truth 
of  matters,  and  to  judge  all  sides  and  parties  with  sym- 
pathetic justice  and  equity,  and  without  prejudice,  but 


THE  BLACK  CURTAIN  FALLS.          685 

also  without  shrinking  from  a  free  and  fearless  vindica- 
tion of  the  truth  and  right.  For  we  not  only  regard 
Jesus  as  having  been  the  initial  point  and  nucleus  of  one 
of  Earth's  greatest  and  most  beneficent  movements,  but 
have  a  most  kindly  sympathy  for  Jesus  personally,  as 
well  as  entertain  many  sympathies  and  repugnances  in 
common  with  him.  And  we  should  be  indeed  sorry,  if 
we  had  unfitted  either  our  readers  or  ourself  from  now 
proceeding  to  part  with  him,  in  the  last  recorded  scene 
in  his  known  career,  with  all  proper  reverence  for  his 
real  virtues,  and  with  all  due  sympathy  for  his  untoward 
fortunes,  and  all  kindly  hopes  and  wishes,  projected  back 
upon  that  unrecorded  earthly  career  which  still  lay  be- 
fore him  when  he  parted  from  his  devoted  followers. 


Let  us  endeavor  to  mentally  outline  and  gaze  upon 
that  last  scene  recorded  in  the  last  chapter  of  the  last 
of  the  gospels.  Time :  early  in  the  morning.  Scene : 
a  fishing  smack  lying  some  200  cubits  from  a  lonely  bit 
of  shore  on  the  Galilean  sea.  On  the  shore  is  a  fire, 
and  on  its  coals  are  seen  fish  broiling,  and  bread  lying 
near.  We  gaze  upon  the  scene.  We  have  no  difficulty 
in  recognizing  the  men  in  the  fishing  smack,  being  old 
acquaintances.  The  faces  of  Peter,  and  John,  and 
James,  and  Thomas,  and  Nathaniel  are  clearly  recog- 
nizable from  the  shore.  They  have  been  fishing. 
Through  the  night  they  had  been  unlucky,  but  are  pre- 


686  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

paring  to  cast  their  net  again.  The  chief  fisherman,  as 
also  chief  apostle,  is  in  command,  and  seems  specially 
prepared  for  business  ;  the  "  Prince  of  the  Apostles  "  is 
naked ;  a  fact  readily  comprehensible  then,  although 
now,  it  has  become  somewhat  difficult  to  realize  the  fact 
of  the  predecessor  of  a  Hildebrand,  a  Leo  Tenth,  or  a 
Pio  Nino,  fishing  naked  before  his  cardinals  or  suffragan 
bishops ! 

Yes,  we  recognize  these  men  and  this  nude  prede- 
cessor of  the  Popes.  But  Who  is  this  lone  man  sitting 
by  his  bivouac  fire  in  this  lonely  spot  on  the  shore,  and 
broiling  his  fish  for  breakfast,  like  some  wandering  and 
fleeing  outcast  ?  Can  this  be  the  Incarnate  God  who 
divinely  rose  from  the  dead  some  few  weeks  ago  on 
Mount  Calvary  ?  No ;  this  strange  man  has  no  recog- 
nizable personal  resemblance  to  that  person.  Nor  is  it 
credible  that,  under  the  circumstances,  he  who  had  mi- 
raculously provided  cooked-fish  for  thousands  by  his 
mere  volition,  would  now  seek  this  lonely  spot,  and 
catch,  clean  and  cook  fish  for  his  own  sustenance.  Be- 
sides, What  business  could  that  divine  person  possibly 
have  in  bivouacing  here  and  now,  in  disguise,  in  this 
lonely  and  secret  spot,  long  after  his  divine  mission  and 
labors  had  been  closed  ?  And,  Did  not  that  Incarnate 
God  close  his  earthly  career  and  ascend  to  Heaven,  the 
very  next  night  after  he  arose,  at  Jerusalem  ? — nay,  we 
mistake, — at  Bethany  ?  Nay, — we  must  amend  the 
whole, — Did  he  not  meet  his  disciples,  by  appointment, 
in  a  mountain  in  Galilee,  and  there  finally  instruct  and 
part  from  them, — neither  of  the  parties  expecting  to 
ever  meet  again  ?  No,  this  cannot  be  that  Incarnate 


THE  BLACK  CURTAIN  FALLS.  687 

God  whose  earthly  mission  had  thus  been  closed,  who 
thus  continues  to  purposely  linger  around  the  sea  of 
Galilee,  evidently  avoiding  the  face  and  habitations  of 
men,  sleeping  out  at  nights,  and  secretly  fishing  and 
cooking  for  his  own  sustenance — no — no,  this  is  quite 
impossible. 

But  pause  !  May  not  this  still  be  a  wanderer  whom 
we  know  ?  May  it  not  be,  that  we  have  here  that  alto- 
gether human  and  unfortunate  aspirant  for  the  throne  of 
Israel  whom  we  have  seen  condemned  and  punished  for 
conspiring  to  become  "  King  of  the  Jews," — he  who 
did  not  rise  from  the  dead  and  did  not  ascend  into 
Heaven,  but  who  escaped  both  death  and  Jerusalem,  and 
fled  in  disguise  into  Galilee,  and  who  secretly  met  with, 
and  finally  parted  from,  his  disciples  on  some  adjacent 
Galilean  mount,  in  continued  life  and  unabated  vigor  ? 
May  not  this  be  an  accidental  meeting  ?  May  he  not 
have  lingered  another  night,  or  even  a  day  and  night, 
around  the  shores  of  that  sea  which  had  witnessed  so 
many  of  his  early  sucsesses  and  then  hopeful  endeavors, 
ere  he  parted  from  it  forever  ?  Nothing  would  seem 
more  probable  :  but  we  will  await  developments.  One 
sign  is  hopeful.  He  evidently  recognizes  and  is  inter- 
ested in  these  fishermen,  and  directs  them  where  to  cast 
their  net.  They  do  not  recognize  him.  But  this  argues 
nothing,  since  they  are  not  disguised,  and  he  is.  The  net 
is  cast,  under  this  man's  directions,  and  with  wonderful 
success.  And  by  some  association  of  ideas,  doubtlessly 
with  certain  former  and  similar  successful  directions, 
the  truth  flashes  upon  the  mind  of  John — it  is  his  mas- 
ter !  Yes,  it  is  Jesus  ;  still  hiding  and  fleeing.  And 


688  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

now  the  impulsive  Peter  throws  on  his  fishing  garment, 
and,  plunging  into  the  water,  swims  ashore  ;  while  the 
others  follow  in  the  small  boat.  They  all  meet  and  con- 
verse around  the  bivouac  fire  of  their  master,  and  pre- 
pare and  eat  their  last  meal  of  "  fish  and  bread "  to- 
gether. But  there  is  a  strange  constraint  and  reticence 
upon  the  part  of  all,  and  especially  upon  the  most  nat- 
ural subjects  of  conversation.  Knowing  his  desire  for 
concealment,  and  his  excessive  dread  of  exposure,  the 
disciples  "  durst  not  ask  him  "  concerning  himself,  nor 
did  Jesus  refer  to  himself  or  to  his  own  plans,  past  or 
future.  They  converse  about  the  future  of  the  disciples  ; 
and  Peter  puts  the  last  question.  And  with  his  master's 
answer  to  this  question,  the  record  of  the  career  of  Jesus 
finally  closes  ;  -and  the  black  curtain  falls,  leaving  him 
with  this  answer  still  upon  his  lips,  himself  well  filled 
with  "  fish  and  bread,"  and  in  the  prime  of  his  life, 
health  and  vigor. 


But  while  the  record  thus  drops  the  curtain,  May  not 
the  imagination,  guided  by  almost  necessary  inferences, 
prolong  at  least  this  one  scene  to  its  close  ?  May  we 
not  imagine  that  silent,  but  last  and  profoundly  sorrow- 
ful parting  ;  the  ship  sailing  off  on  its  return  to  Caper- 
naum ;  that  lone  wanderer  standing  on  the  shore  gazing 
on  its  lessening  and  dimming  sails  ?  Can  we  not  im- 
agine the  anguish  with  which  those  devoted  fishermen 
would  turn  and  look  back  to  that  receding  shore  ?  And, 
as  the  lonely  and  dimming  figure  faded  out  in  the  dis- 


THE  BLACK  CURTAIN  FALLS.  689 

tance,  May  we  not  imagine  Peter  and  John  voicelessly 
gazing  from  the  stern  of  their  vessel,  while  convulsive 
sobs  were  swelling  the  bosom  of  the  "  beloved  disciples," 
and  tears  were  furrowing  the  weather-beaten  face  of 
the  sturdy  fisherman  who  had  just  been  left  to  "feed  his 
sheep  ? "  But  Who  may  say  what  were  the  thoughts  of 
the  lonely  fugitive  who  was  thus  fading  from  their  view, 
or  whither  he  directed  his  steps  when  they,  too,  faded 
away  in  the  distance  ?  That  he  had  never  died,  never 
risen  from  the  dead,  never  ascended  into  Heaven,  and 
that  we  finally  part  from  him  in  his  fullest  prospect  for 
continued  life,  and  while  using  every  precaution  to  es- 
cape death,  without  a  hint  from  either  him  or  his  disci- 
ples of  his  anticipating  an  early  departure  from  mortal 
life  or  any  other  departure  save  that  by  time  and  natural 
death,  we  already  know  ;  and  thus  knowing,  we  must 
anticipate  for  him  many  years  of  natural  life.  But  what 
that  future  life  would  be,  and  in  what  land  it  would  be 
spent,  were  matters  necessarily  to  be  kept  in  profound 
secrecy  even  from  his  disciples.  His  future  career 
after  he  left  Galilee,  therefore,  must  ever  remain  buried 
in  that  silent  domain  of  the  Unrecorded,  which  has 
shrouded  in  oblivion  the  great  mass  of  human  actions 
and  human  destinies.  May  the  sod  rest  lightly  above 
his  remains  wherever  they  may  lie. 

44 


690  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 


CHAPTER   XXIII 

CONCLUSION. 

MAN  early  forms  the  conception  of  divine  beings, 
and  still  earlier  forms  the  conception  of  an  inner  Self  or 
Soul.  It  is  long,  however,  before  he  even  approximates 
a  true  conception  of  either.  It  is  the  unalterable  ten- 
dency of  man  to  believe  in  both,  after  he  has  attained  a 
capacity  for  conceiving  them.  If  there  be  a  time  in 
man's  early  history  when  he  does  not  believe  in  either, 
it  is  a  time  so  early  that  he  is  incapable  of  forming  ideas 
upon  such  subjects.  He  is  driven  into  the  belief  of  them 
by  the  mental  influences  which  compel  their  conception. 
Doubt  and  disbelief  of  them  are  of  later  growth,  and  are 
the  offspring  of  Reason  and  Investigation.  But  this 
doubt  and  disbelief,  although  normal  processes  of  mental 
progress,  are  not  normal  states  in  which  man  can  rest. 
They  are  but  the  first  steps  in  forcing  a  reconstruction 
of  our  immature  conceptions  ;  and  the  same  (and  per- 
haps additional  causes)  that  compelled  our  immature 
conceptions  will  compel  a  reconstruction  of  them.  For 
these  inseparable  ideas  of  God  and  Soul  are  not  only 
suggested  and  proved  by  the  facts  of  Nature,  but  are 
nourished  by  the  fundamental  aspirations  of  the  soul. 
The  difficulty  in  this  matter  does  not  lay  in  the  lack  of 
belief  in  souls  and  Deities,  but  in  man's  incapacity, 


CONCLUSION.  691 

hitherto,  to  form  true  or  rational,  or  indeed  any  clear 
conception  of  them.  As  might  have  been  expected,  the 
God-ideas  and  religious  creeds  of  the  more  developed 
races  present  a  progressive  formation,  constructed  by 
means  of  successive  additions,  patchings  and  remodel- 
lings.  As  the  developing  soul  has  found  new  needs  and 
acquired  deeper  insight,  rendering  its  old  creeds  too  in- 
fantile and  cramped  for  its  accommodation,  it  has  been 
driven  into  efforts  at  improvement  until  temporary  ac- 
commodation was  attained  ;  rather  remodelling,  how- 
ever, than  attempting  to  build  anew.  Thus  far,  Religion 
has  made  no  determined  and  prolonged  effort  to  recon- 
struct itself  upon  a  rational  basis,  freed  from  the  dogmas 
and  influences  born  of  super-naturalism.  And,  conse- 
quently, its  achievements  hitherto  have  been  provisional 
and  temporary — a  successive  series  of  modifications  and 
changes,  without  rational  hope  of  permanence.  The 
entire  framework  of  even  our  Christian  Theology  stands 
utterly  condemned  by  Science  and  Reason,  as  the  im- 
mature production  of  early  ignorance  and  superstition. 
The  doctrines  of  a  creation  by  fiat,  of  man's  fall  and  de- 
generacy, of  written  divine  laws,  of  divinely-inspired 
men,  prophecies  and  writings,  of  proving  facts  by  mira- 
cles, of  an  incarnation  of  God,  of  a  divine  vicarious  sac- 
rifice for  human  sins,  of  eternal  punishment,  personal 
devils,  and  a  local  hell,  of  a  local  Heaven  or  "  City  of 
God,"  with  its  enthroned  King,  -could  never  have  been 
born  of  modern  thought,  and  can  find  no  support  in 
modern  knowledge  or  enlightened  reason.  The  germs 
of  truth  which  these  false  notions  obscure  rather  than 
elucidate,  are  the  real  existence  of  God,  the  soul,  and 
immortality. 


692  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

But  it  may  be  asked — "  Could  an  uninspired  gospel 
and  an  uninspired  Church  have  won  such  triumphs  as 
Christianity  has  won  ?  Has  not  the  Church  proved  its 
pretensions  by  its  successes  ?  Certainly  no  success  ever 
won  by  Christianity  or  its  founder  can  even  form  an 
evidence,  much  less  proof,  of  its  supernatural  origin. 
There  is  not  a  single  influence  it  ever  exerted,  which 
may  not  be  plainly  traced  to  adequate  natural  causes, 
where  the  real  facts  are  known. 

Its  influence  upon  the  emotions,  beliefs  and  conduct 
of  individuals  is  certainly  very  marked  in  certain  in- 
stances, but  such  influences  are  not  more  marked  than 
their  causes  are  simple  and  palpable.  "  Let  us  merely 
glance  at  the  nature  and  cause  of  some  of  its  most  strik- 
ing personal  effects.  What  occurs,  for  example,  in  the 
process  of  converting  a  sinner  at  one  of  our  religious 
revivals  ?  The  first  process  of  the  revivalist  is  to  get 
lip  a  general  state  of  emotional  and  sympathetic  excite- 
ment which  will  utterly  subordinate  everything  to  the 
purpose  in  hand  and  sway  and  control  the  congregation. 
Secondly :  he  endeavors  to  produce  "  conviction,"  or  an 
overwhelming  sense  of  guilt  and  fear — a  conviction  of 
being  utterly  lost  and  undone,  without  divine  aid  and 
pardon.  Thirdly  :  when  the  victim  of  this  terrible  con- 
viction has  exhausted  himself  in  supplications  for  mercy, 
and  approaches  the  point  of  despair,  the  light  of  hope  is 
thrown  full  upon  him  ;  he  is  promised  an  immediate, 
free  and  full  pardon  and  salvation  the  moment  that  he 
will  have  faith  in  Jesus,  and  in  the  promised  pardon  ; 
and  he  is  passionately  exhorted  to  have  absolute  faith,  to 
"  give  himself  up  "  and  trust  all  to  God,  who  stands  with 


CONCLUSIONS.  693 

outstretched  arms  to  receive  him  the  moment  he  has  en- 
tire faith  in  the  promised  salvation.  The  exhausted  and 
despairing  reprobate  finally  lets  all  holds  go,  and  drops 
helplessly,  but  with  an  absolute  faith  in  the  divine  as- 
surances. Now,  if  this  leap  of  Faith"  had  been  from  a 
fourth  story  window,  the  pavement  would  have  shaken 
it  in  an  astonishing  manner.  But,  as  the  whole  matter 
is  purely  mental — is  purely  emotional  and  imaginative, 
the  fact  of  pardon  and  salvation  can  never  be  tested  'or 
known,  and  can  only  be  evidenced  by  the  man's  own 
mental  feelings.  Here,  however,  the  facts  are  unequiv- 
ocal. Having  absolute  faith  that  he  would  be  pardoned, 
and  was  pardoned,  he  feels  and  acts  exactly  as  he  would 
were  the  whole  matter  the  divinest  reality.  He  feels  all 
the  relief  from  guilt  and  fear,  and  all  the  blessedness  of 
a  sense  of  salvation  and  of  divine  favor  and  reconcilia- 
tion. His  feelings,  beliefs  and  conduct  will  correspond 
with  his  undoubting  belief  or  faith  as  to  the  facts. 
Whether  the  facts  are  true  or  false  is  a  matter  of  no  dif- 
ference, and  can  never  be  either  proved  or  disproved. 
His  absolute  faith  in  their  truth,  however,  makes  them 
true  to  his  own  mind,  even  if  they  were  false ;  and  his 
feelings,  beliefs  and  conduct  will  respond  exactly  in  pro- 
portion to  his  faith.  In  its  effects  upon  the  believer 
himself,  absolute  faith  in  an  unknowable  fact  is  always 
identical  with  its  reality.  And  this  fact,  in  itself,  very 
clearly  accounts  for  the  feelings  and  conduct  of  converts 
and  for  all  the  "  internal  evidences  "  of  the  religion  of 
Jesus.  The  same  religious  excitement,  ecstasies,  convul- 
sions and  other  physical  or  mental  effects,  and  the  same 
internal  convictions  of  the  truth  of  their  religion,  and  the 
same  willingness  to  surfer  martyrdom  for  it  which  are 


694  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

found  among  Christians,  are  also  found  among  the  vo- 
taries of  other  religions.  There  is  no  effect  produced 
by  Christianity,  which  cannot  be  paralleled  or  duplicated 
from'  other  religions.  Neither  the  supposed  internal 
evidences  of  the  "truth  of  Christianity,  nor  its  effects 
upon  the  feelings,  belief  or  conduct,  therefore,  can  fur- 
nish the  slightest  evidence  of  its  supernatural  origin  or 
of  the  truth  of  its  theology,  even  were  they  all  that  they 
are  claimed  to  be. 


The  expansion  and  the  acquisition  of  power  and  do- 
minion by  Christianity  can,  in  like  manner,  have  no 
tendency  whatever  to  prove  its  special  divine  origin  or 
truth.  The  extent  of  religious  influences  and  move- 
ments are  always  incalculable,  but  always  dependent  upon 
natural  causes  and  conditions.  The  man  who  can  sup- 
ply the  special  need,  or  furnish  the  necessary  inspiration, 
required  by  the  masses  of  mankind  at  any  given  stage 
of  their  development — who  can  shake  the  tree  when  the 
pear  is  ripe  and  ready  to  fall,  is  sure  of  success — of  a 
success  commensurate,  not  with  his  own  worth  or  ability, 
but  with  the  need  or  demand  which  he  supplies.  Gua- 
tama  was  a  mendicant  preacher  like  Jesus,  and  yet  his 
success  was  far  greater.  Mahomet  was  a  mere  private 
and  undistinguished  citizen  suffering  from  religious 
mania  and  mental  hallucinations,  and  yet  his  religion 
supplanted  that  of  Jesus  in  the  entire  region  of  its  birth 
and  early  triumphs,  and  long  threatened  its  utter  extinc- 
tion. The  influence  of  the  entire  body  of  the  statesmen 


CONCLUSION.  695 

and  warriors  of  our  century  will  probably  prove  far  less 
profound  and  prolonged  than  those  of  Mr.  Wesley  or 
Joseph  Smith.  The  wholly  z^divine  nature  of  such  tri- 
umphs is  also  shown  by  the  fact  of  the  utter  failure  of 
Christianity  to  convert  the  Jews, — its  prime  object  and 
effort.  If  success  with  the  Gentiles  could  be  regarded 
as  at  all  presumptive  of  its  divine  origin,  What  shall  we 
say  of  this  persistent  and  signal  defeat,  this  defeat,  not 
only  of  Jesus  before  the  Jews,  but  of  Peter  and  his  gos- 
pel to  the  Jews  ?  What,  indeed,  shall  we  say  of  its  utter 
failure  to  convert  any  people  already  possessed  of  an  in- 
spired religion  and  written  divine  laws,  outside  the  Ro- 
man Empire  where  it  had  finally  triumphed  by  the  sword 
of  Constantine  ? 


In  the  highest  sense,  all  the  agencies  by  which  man 
is  developed  and  the  progress  of  Humanity  is  secured, 
are  divine.  In  this  universal  sense,  and  in  no  other,  is 
the  Christian  Church  and  its  records  of  divine  origin. 
That  it  has  "been  an  inestimable  comfort  and  blessing  to 
millions  of  the  human  race  is  certain.  That  most  of  the 
races  adopting  it  have  made  progress  under,  and  often 
by,  its  influence,  is  not  to  be  doubted  ; — a  progress  often 
even  exceptionally  great.  That  it  was  a  fit  instrument, 
— nay,  that  it  was  the  fittest  and  necessary  instrument, 
for  producing  the  special  progress  and  results  it  has  ac- 
tually achieved,  and  which,  in  the  divine  economy  and 
order  of  Nature,  it  was  to  achieve,  is  indubitably  proved 
by  the  fact  of  its  selection  and  success. 


696  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

Like  all  other  instruments  of  natural  progress,  Jesus 
and  his  followers  were  a  success  precisely  because,  and 
precisely  to  the  extent,  they  were  the  right  men,  in  the 
right  times  and  places.  But  the  precise  same  language 
may  be  properly  used  of  Guatama,  Mahomet,  Luther  or 
Wesley.  There  have  been  many  religious  successes  be- 
sides those  of  Christianity,  and  will  be  others  still. 
Each  phase  of  religious  growth  must  have  its  own  form 
of  manifestation  and  expression,  and  when  the  state  and 
conditions  demanding  such  advance  and  change  arrives, 
the  divine  agencies  of  Nature  for  effecting  them  have 
already  germinated  ;  and  in  due  time  and  order  will 
consummate  them  to  the  pre-involved  and  determined 
extent.  The  Christian  claim  in  this  regard  is  based 
upon  considerations  substantially  common  to  ail  success- 
ful religions  from  Fetichism  to  Mormonism.  The  mere 
fact  of  any  agency  having  been  actually  used  in  the 
course  of  Evolution,  is  not  the  slightest  evidence  that  it 
is  founded  on  truth,  or  is  good,  in  a  human  sense ;  while 
all  are  good  in  an  absolute  or  irrelative  and  divine  sense. 
The  merest  mistakes  and  sheerest  lies  of  men  are  often 
the  means  of  immeasurable  good.  Even  the  wickedness 
of  men, — the  "good  book"  tells  us, — is  made  to  "praise 
God."  The  very  fact  of  continued  development  and 
progress  implies  continued  error  and  incompleteness. 
Nature's  means  and  processes  are  always  exactly  ade- 
quate to  her  ends,  and,  therefore,  are  complete  and  per- 
fect as  means  and  processes.  Her  products  and  results 
are  always  approximating  nearer  to  her  final  aims,  and 
are  therefore  never  complete  and  perfect,  save  as  means 
and  processes  to  further  products  and  results,  or  until 
some  ultimate  aim  is  reached.  Man  is  quite  unable  to 


CONCLUSION.  697 

determine  either  the  completeness,  perfection  or  good- 
ness of  Nature's  "works."  He  only  judges  them  rela- 
tively to  himself  and  his  own  aspirations,  desires  and  en- 
joyments. While  Christianity,  therefore,  may  be  wholly 
divine  and  good  as  an  instrument  of  natural  evolution, 
and  in  an  absolute  sense,  it  by  no  means  follows,  that  it 
has  these  gifts  as  special  qualities  or  characteristics,  or 
to  the  exclusion  of  other  religions,  or  that  it  is  divine  or 
good  in  its  own  sense  of  divine  and  good.  Christianity, 
indeed,  triumphed  as  much  because  it  was  not  final  and 
true,  and  by  its  own  imperfections,  as  by  its  suggestion 
of  a  higher  range  or  degree  of  perfectness,  and  the  sup- 
ply of  more  pungent  and  efficient  moral  motives  and 
higher  assurances  of  immortality  ;  but  not  at  all  by  the 
truth  of  its  conceptions,  assertions  or  pretensions.  The 
truth  would  neither  have  been  comprehended  or  efficient 
in  .the  days  of  Jesus — would  not  now,  with  the  great 
mass  of  our  own  people. 


Had  Jesus,  as  we  have  elsewhere  suggested,  written 
a  truthful  autobiography,  as  well  as  a  complete  and 
clearly  comprehensible  moral  and  doctrinal  code,  in 
which  his  real  life,  motives  and  opinions  were  truly  re- 
flected, and  had  accompanied  them  with  an  exact  por- 
trait of  himself  and  his  old  Nazarene  mother,  where 
would  Christianity  have  been  now  ?  Is  it  not  evident, 
that  the  book  and  the  very  memory  of  its  author  would 
have  perished  ?  It  is  the  very  indefiniteness,  uncer- 
tainty, mystery  and  suggestiveness  which  surround  and 


698  JESUS   AND    RELIGION. 

characterize  both  him,  his  life  and  his  doctrines,  and  the 
unbounded  promises  and  immeasurable  hopes  and  fears 
with  which  they  were  burdened,  that  gave  them  that 
vigor  and  that  elasticity  and  placidity  which  constituted 
their  adaptability  to  human  needs,  and  fitted  them  for  a 
prolonged  course  of  usefulness  and  success.  They  have 
been,  and  still  are,  "  all  things  to  all  men."  Each  per- 
son of  sufficient  individuality  to  form  opinions  of  his 
own,  has  continued  to  mould  these  shadowy  and  hetero- 
geneous elements  to  suit  his  own  mind  and  satisfy  his 
own  spiritual  needs.  The  wonderful  conglomerate  fur- 
nished by  the  Christian  traditions  and  writings  furnished 
a  new  quarry  for  the  formation  of  new  ideals,  and  for 
remoulding  and  embodying  old  myths.  Out  of  this 
many-hued  and  plastic  mass  of  material  individuals, 
sects  and  successive  generations, — to  use  a  homely 
simile, — have  moulded  and  smoked  their  own  pipes. 
The  scenes,  characters  and  events,  mythic  and  real,  in 
the  New  Testament  and  apocryphal  Christian  writings 
have  furnished  an  almost  exhaustless  store  of  materials 
for  the  plastic  labors  of  Art,  and  given  loose  rein  to  the 
creative  faculties  of  the  painter,  the  sculptor  and  the 
poet.  There  is  scarce  a  hint  to  hamper  their  unbridled 
fancies  in  the  whole  writings.  Each  can  improve  upon 
the  ideals  and  conceptions  of  his  predecessors  without 
restraint  from  the  records.  The  whole  affair  has  the 
rare  attractiveness  which  belongs  to  the  suggestive,  the 
mysterious  and  unknowable. 

Morally  and  doctrinally  it  was  almost  equally  plastic. 
Diligence  and  a  willing  mind  could  discover  some  frag- 
ments or  dubieties  from  which  almost  every  one  could 


CONCLUSION.  699 

mould  or  warp  into  doctrines  or  creeds  in  conformity 
with  their  own  notions  or  desires — into  some  shell  or 
shelter  for  that  hermit  crab — the  chrysalis  Soul.  There 
have  arisen  some  thousand  or  more  distinct  schisms 
and  sects  in  the  Christian  Church ; — a  number  vastly 
excelling  that  of  the  sects  of  all  other  religions.  To 
this  we  may  add  an  almost  countless  variety  of  individ- 
ual beliefs  and  interpretations.  This  conflict  or  diver- 
sity of  opinion  in  regard  to  almost  every  important  fact, 
doctrine  and  notion  mentioned  in  the  New  Testament, 
has  been  deemed  quite  conclusive  against  the  claims  of 
Christianity.  And,  if  it  is  simply  deemed  adverse  to  its 
claims  to  an  exclusive  divine  origin  and  support,  the 
conclusion  is  correct ;  if  it  is  claimed,  however,  as  a 
proof  of  the  unfitness  of  Christianity  as  a  divine  instru- 
ment of  Evolution,  it  is  the  very  reverse  of  correct. 
This  adaptability  of  Christianity  and  its  continuous  mod- 
ification and  change,  from  age  to  age,  has  been  the  true 
source  of  its  prolonged  success,  and  constitutes  its  surest 
voucher  for  its  divine  origin. 

Besides  possessing  these  general  qualifications  for  an 
instrument  of  Evolution,  there  were  many  concurring 
causes  and  conditions  favoring  the  success  of  Christian- 
ity— too  many  to  be  even  mentioned  here.  Prior  to  the 
crucifixion,  as  we  have  seen,  the  disciples  of  Jesus  had 
regarded  him  as  a  prophet,  and  hoped  he  might  prove 
the  temporal  ruler  and  redeemer  of  Israel.  When,  how- 
ever, these  hopes  were  blasted  by  his  failure  and  execu- 
tion, they  were  overwhelmed  with  disappointment.  His 
unexpected  reappearance  and  supposed  resurrection  put 
a  new  face  upon  things,  and  there  was  a  general  over- 
hauling and  reconstruction  of  notions,  opinions  and 


7OO  JESUS   AND   RELIGION. 

plans,  under  the  limitations  and  necessities  imposed  by 
the  new  state  of  facts.  There  was  little  difficulty  in  in- 
ducing the  credulous  disciples  to  believe,  that  they,  to- 
gether with  the  balance  of  their  race,  had  been  mistaken 
as  to  the  character  and  mission  of  the  Christ  of  proph- 
ecy. Their  old  habits  of  implicit  faith  and  obedience  to 
their  master  was  now  supplemented  by  the  new  belief 
that  he  was  a  God  ;  and  his  declarations  and  interpre- 
tations of  scripture  were  thenceforth  considered  as  di- 
vine and  authoritative ; — requiring  the  aid  of  neither  fact 
nor  reason.  The  new  scheme  of  the  speedy  second  com- 
ing of  Jesus  in  all  his  divine  power  and  glory,  and  the 
prospects  of  their  own  exaltation  under  his  divine  reign, 
set  their  souls  ablaze  with  love,  hope  and  faith.  Could 
world-storming  and  Heaven- scaling  be  difficult  for  such 
men  when  backed  by  the  power  and  promises  of  the 
Father  and  the  intercessions  of  the  Son,  and  when  "  filled 
W'th  the  Holy  Ghost  ? "  Were  they  not  ignorant  and 
suffering  men  appealing  to  ignorant  and  suffering  men  in 
behalf  of  their  own  salvation  ?  and  could  they  not  kindle 
a  fire  upon  the  "  altar  of  their  hearts,"  from  the  red-hot 
coals  upon  their  own  ?  Were  they  not  brim  full  of  cour- 
age and  faith  ?  and  Did  they  not  carry  their  own  arsenals 
and  forges  with  them  to  furnish  or  mend  their  shafts  to 
penetrate  all  armors  ?  Were  they  not  ready  to  be  "  all 
things  to  all  men"  for  their  very  salvation's  sake  ?  Was 
there  not  triumph  in  the  very  outlook  ?  Did  not  an 
open  ocean  of  Superstition  spread  out  before  them,  upon 
which  they  could  sail  at  pleasure  with  all  their  sails  set  ? 
Were  there  not  vast  harbors  of  Credulity  where  they 
could  defythe  storms  of  Reason  ?  Were  there  not  great 
seas  of  Slavery,  suffering,  poverty,  want  and  woe  upon 


CONCLUSION.  7OI 

which  to  sail,  and  a  perfect  universe  of  longing  and  dis- 
content, to  swell  their  sails  ?  Were  not  they  themselves 
from  that  multitudinous  sub-stratum  of  Society  where 
the  wants  of  Humanity  are  nakedest  and  her  hopes 
most  immeasurable,  and  Could  they  not  reach  the  heart 
of  that  Humanity  to  its  very  nethermost  depths  ?  Had 
they  not  both  authority  and  example  for  sending  Lazarus 
to  Heaven  and  Dives  to  Hell,  and  for  making  the  first 
last  and  the  down-trodden  millions  first  ?  Had  they  not 
all  men  bribed,  in  advance,  by  immeasurable  hopes  and. 
fears,  as  well  as  nine-tenths  of  them  by  the  addition  of 
their  prejudices  against  the  rich  and  prosperous  ?  And 
Were  not  the  walls  and  defences  of  the  old  domain  of 
Polytheism  in  such  advanced  decay  as  to  invite  their 
entry  and  possession  ?  If  philosophic  books  or  men  stood 
in  their  way,  Might  not  the  one  be  sent  to  the  flames 
and  the  other  to  hell, — in  the  name  of  Jesus  !  If  perse- 
cution or  even  death  menaced  them,  Was  there  not  a 
glorious  resurrection  and  a  martyr's  crown  to  be  hourly 
expected  with  the  "  second  coming  ? "  If  their  preach- 
ing was  foolish,  Was  it  not  to  be  gloried  in  as  the  fool- 
ishness of  God  and  salvation  ?  Were  not  the4iusks  and 
shards  of  old  beliefs  already  dried  and  parched  into  a 
magazine  of  combustibles?  and  Was  not  this  new-lit, 
fiery  cross,. reeking  with  divine  blood  and  heralding  im- 
mortal hopes  and  hell-hot  fears,  the  very  torch  to  set  the 
old  dry-rotted  World  aflame  ?  Was  not  there  cause  to 
hearken  and  tremble  ?  Was  not  the  final  arbiter  of 
men's  eternal  bliss  or  eternal  torment, — that  Jesus  who 
had  risen  from  the  dead, — even  then  stealing  upon  the 
world  "  like  a  thief  in  the  night  ?  "  Were  not  the  very 
generations  to  whom  they  bore  his  message  doomed  to 


/O2  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

see  the  sun  darkened,  the  moon  turned  to  blood,  the 
stars  of  heaven  fall,  the  Earth  consumed  by  unimagin- 
able fire,  and  the  heavens  rolled  up  like  a  parch-scroll,  as 
this  terrible  arbiter  of  all  men's  fate  should  come  "  in 
clouds  and  great  glory  "  to  separate  the  redeemed  believ- 
ers from  the  lost  and  damned  unbelievers  ?  Dared  a 
world  of  Superstition  stand  unmoved  in  the  presence  of 
such  stupendous  responsibilities  and  consequences  ? 
Had  not  the  time  come  when  Paul  might  well  say  that 
God  had  "  chosen  the  foolish  things  of  the  world  to  con- 
found the  wise,  and  God  hath  chosen  the  weak  things  cf 
the  world  to  "confound  the  things  of  the  mighty  :  and 
base  things  of  the  world  and  things  which  are  despised, 
hath  God  chosen,  yea  and  things  which  are  not  to  bring 
to  naught  things  that  are — ? "  Had  not  the  time  come 
when  the  "  mud  sills  "  should  be  lifted  up,  and  the  poor 
have  the  gospel  preached,  and  immortality  and  crowns 
of  glory  awarded  them  "  without  money  and  without 
price  ? "  Were  it  not  also  worth  while  to  believe  ? 


Had  all  the  philosophers  of  the  Roman  Empire  con- 
spired to  found  a  new  religion,  they  would  have  produced 
less  effect  upon  mankind  than  the  single  labors  of  that 
indomitable  sail-maker  of  Tarsus  with  his  divine  message 
to  the  Gentiles.  The  religion  of  the  one  would  have  ap- 
pealed to  the  reason  of  the  intelligent  few  who  were 
capable  of  forming  or  of  judging  opinions  for  themselves, 
and  would  have  resulted  in  endless  debate  which  would 
never  have  reached  more  than  a  tenth  of  the  people. 


CONCLUSION.  703 

The  religion  of  the  other  came  as  a  direct  message  from 
God,  that  permitted  no  question  of  its  propriety  or  truth, 
but  demanded  acceptance  and  belief  by  its  divine  sanc- 
tion and  by  every  hope  of  reward  and  every  fear  of  pun- 
ishment which  a  sympathizing  nature  and  fervid  imagi- 
nation could  conceive  for  influencing  the  superstitious 
and  down-trodden  laborers,  women  and  slaves  to  whom 
it  was  preached.  It  appealed  to  the  emotions  alone — 
those  truj  motors  of  the  soul.  It  planted  itself  in  the 
fundamental  life-aspiration  of  the  human  soul,  and  rooted 
itself  in  the  perennial  needs,  hopes  and  desires  of  the 
masses  of  mankind — the  very  sub-soil  from  which  all 
great  evolutive  agencies  draw  their  nourishment  and 
vigor.  Paul  and  Nature  were  in  accord  in  their  imme- 
diate aims  and  means,  but  were  widely  divergent  in  their 
secondary  or  ulterior  purposes.  Each  proposed  to  secure 
a  belief  in  Christianity  by  the  most  efficient  means : — 
Paul,  with  a  view  to  secure  the  eternal  salvation,  in 
Heaven,  of  the  believer : — Nature,  with  a  view  to  secure 
the  proper  inspirations  and  restraints  to  insure  man's 
further  progress  on  Earth,  as  the  only  means  of -securing 
him  endless  psychical  progress  in  intelligence  and  beat 
itude  in  the  Hereafter.  The  temporary  partnership  of 
Paul  and  Nature  proved  a  success  : — as  was  most  likely. 
They  furnished  the  exact  religion  needed  for  the  tempo- 
rary purposes  designed  and  actually  subserved,  and  it 
of  necessity  triumphed. 


As  Evolution  was  the  nurse,  so  will  it  be  the  sexton, 
of  Christianity.     The  decay  of  this  religion  among  the 


704  JESUS    AND    RELIGION. 

intelligent  classes  and  among  the  laboring  masses  from 
which  it  sprung,  is  as  certain,  if  not  as  rapid,  as  its  rise. 
This  decadence  is  as  resistless  as  it  is  final.  It  has  been 
of  incalculable  service  to  mankind,  and  still  is,  and  may 
long  continue  to  be,  an  inspiration  and  blessing  to  mil- 
lions ;  but  the  hand  of  the  Inevitable  is  upon  it.  Being 
a  product  and  phase  of  Evolution  it  will  merge  into  a 
higher  phase.  Its  plasticity  and  adaptability  have  been 
indeed  marvellous,  but  they  have  been  stretched  to  their 
utmost.  Every  re-stretching  is  at  the  expense  of  its 
vigor  and  vitality  as  a  supernatural  religion,  and  can 
only  result  in  an  ever  more  transparent  tenuity  and  in 
final  rupture.  Without  the  aid  of  supernaturalism  it  is 
but  an  empty  shell — "  sound  and  fury  signifying  noth- 
ing : "  and  the  reign  of  Supernaturalism  is  closing. 
Christianity  is  dying  at  both  top  and  root — among  the 
bodily  toilers  and  the  brain  toilers,  and  its  hollow  trunk 
has  been  invaded  by  Phariseeism  and  Mammon.  This 
was  inevitable — was  a  necessary  result  of  its  triumph. 
There  is  no  warfare  against  it,  and  need  be  none.  It 
still  has  numbers,  power,  and  that  wealth  to  which  it 
panders.  The  terrors,  and  hopes  and  consolations  it  has 
supplied  may  long  be  required  by  the  ignorant  and  un- 
developed, and  may  furnish  a  basis  for  mystic  ideals  to 
even  higher  intelligences  ;  while  it  will  still  continue  to 
be  a  useful  instrument  of  political  parties  and  of  the 
Plutocracy  in  educating,  influencing  and  controlling  the 
people ;  and  it  may  still  glory  in  its  dominion  ; — but 
neither  it,  nor  aught  else  earthly,  can  avoid  that  fatal 
decay  from  inanition  and  corruption  which  even  Triumph 
itself  brings,  and  which  sooner  or  later  comes  to  all 
instruments  of  progressive  evolution,  nor  repress  that 


CONCLUSION.  7O5 

strange  and  expansive  power  of  new  growths  which 
rends  the  very  rocks  with  its  fibrous  touch.  All  forms 
of  Supernaturalism  are  doomed — are  provisional  only. 
Men  grew  into  Christianity,  and  they  will  grow  out  of 
it.  The  old  shell  of  the  young  Chrysalis  already  feels 
the  birth-throes  from  the  coming  of  the  new  life  within 
it ;  and,  in  its  instinctive  dread  of  dissolution,  it  fever- 
ishly puts  forth  unwonted  efforts  in  this  brief  "  Indian 
summer"  of  its  waning  life.  The  sun  of  the  new  day 
has  not  fully  risen,  but  the  morning  sky  is  red  with  its 
coming  ! 


To  the  true  Theistic  Evolutionist,  in  his  philosophic 
moods,  the  final  feverish  efforts  of  the  two  poles  of 
Christianity — Catholicism  and  Protestantism — to  main- 
tain the  ascendancy  of  Supernaturalism  and  the  Church, 
are  subjects  at  once  of  mournful  interest  and  of  exultant 
hope.  Like  the  sympathetic  watcher  of  the  "  old  year 
out  and  the  new  year  in,"  he  can  but  whisper  his  ideas 
to  the  waning  Cycle  of  Evolution  with  a  sense  of  mys- 
terious awe  as  he  witnesses  the  feverish  death-spasms 
and  struggles  for  life  of  this  last  and  mightiest  of  the 
past  agencies  of  human  progress,  ere  he  turns  to  embrace 
the  new  heir  of  Hope  and  child  God.  Believing  in  the 
divinity  of  all  Nature's  methods, — even  in  that  of  the 
grim  death  which  gives  possession  to  the  new  heirs  of 
both  men  and  Progress,  he  sympathizes  with  all,  and 
touches  every  foot-print  of  the  Divine  Creative  Intelli- 
gence with  an  unstinted  and  loving  reverence.  To  him 

45 


7O6  JESUS    AND    RELIGION 

the  material  or  human  and  perishing  forms  it  assumes 
and  the  agencies  it  evolves  and  adopts,  in  its  inarch 
from  Chaos  towards  Light  and  God,  are  of  interest  only 
as  inestimable  mementoes  and  evidences  of  that  divine 
process  of  evolution  of  which  all  human  life  and  history 
form  a  part,  and  which  is  ever  bearing  the  soul  up  to- 
wards God.* 

*  The  true  conceptions  of  God  and  of  the  soul  and  its  destiny,  we  have  endeavored  to 
establish  in  a  work  entitled  the  "  Divine  Problem  :  " — to  which  the  Reader  is  respect- 
fully referred. 


BT 

303 


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